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MAYNARDS 

i^NGLisH • Classic • Series 









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— Yyr— 

Daniel Defoe 



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NEW YORK 

Maynard, Merrill 6c Co. 

43,45 at 47 East lOIiJ St. 



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Mailingmce 24cts. 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 

von 

Classes in English Literature^ Beading* Gtrammar^ ete*| 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

I 

Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author^s Life, Prefatory and 

Explanatory I^otes^ etc., etc.^ 



1 Byron's Fropheoy of Dante, 

(Cantos I. and U.) 

2 Milton's li' Allegro, and II Pen- 

seroso. 

3 liord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 

6 Moore's Fire Worshippers. 

(Lalla Rookh. Selected.) 

6 Goldsmith's Deserted Villagre. 

7 Scott's Marmion. (Selections 

from Canto VI.) 

8 Scott's Liay of th^r^ast Minstrel* 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 

9 Burns'sCotter'sSaturdayNight, 

and ' ^ 

10 Crab 

11 Cam] 

(Ab 

12 MacR 

Pill 

13 Maca 

Poe 

14 Shak 

nic< 

m.. 

15 Goldf 

16 liog^ 

mei 

17 Colei 
^8 Addi 

ley. 

19 Gray 

Chi 

20 Scott . 
I.) 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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31 Irrlng's Sketch Book. (Seleo^ 

tions.) 

32 Dickens's Christmas Carol, 

(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. 

(Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake^ 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson's The Two Toices, 

and A Dream of Fair Women. 

37 Memory Quotations. 

38 Cavalier Poets. 

39 Dryden's Alexander's Feastf 

and MacFlecknoe. 

e of St. Agnes. 
% of Sleepy Hol» 



firom Shake- 
jto Teach Bead- 1 

iker HIU Ora- 

j ■{ 
OrthoCpist. A ; 
upciation. i 
as, and Hymn i 

t<»psis, and other I 

em Painters* j 

^e Speaker. t 
pundabout Pa- 



%95 



21 Shakespeare's As You Like It, 

etc. (Selections.) 

22 Shakespeare's King John, and 

Kichard II. (Selections.) 

23 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 

ry v., Henry VI. (Selections.) 
84 Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Jnlius Ciesar. (Selections.) 
25 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 
2G Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

27 Speuser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

Land II.) 

28 Cowper's Task. (Book I.) ^ 

29 Milton's Comus. 
80 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 

Lotus Eaters, UljsMs, and 
s Tlthoc ns. 



'^M't3r^**^^l^tVr's Oration on Adams 
and Jefl'erson. 

52 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Liife and Death of 
Jason. i 

54 Burke's Speech on American' 
Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the Lock« 

56 Tennyson's Elaine. 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the .^neid. 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 
Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 
con. (Condensed.) 

62 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 
lish Version by Eev. Potter.M.A. 

iddditUmal nuwiber$ on next page,} 



English Classic Series-continued*^ 



68 The Antigone of Sophocles. 

EngHsh Version by Thos. Franck« 
lin, D.D. 

64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 

(Selected Poems.) 
66 Robert Browning* (Selected 

Poems.) 

66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec^ns.) 

67 Scenes from George £llot'8 

Adam Bede. 

68 Matthew Arnold's Caltnro and 

Anarchy. 

69 DeQuincey'fl Joan of Are* 
76 Carlyle's Essay on Barns. 

71 Byron's ChUde Harold's Pil- 

grimage. 

72 Poe's Raven, and other Poems. 

73 & 74 Macaulay's I^ord CUtc* 

(Double Number.) 

76 Webster's Reply to Hayne. 

76&77 Macaiilay's liays of An- 
cient Rome. (Double Number.) 

78 American Patriotic Selections: 

Declaration of Independence, 
Washington's Farewell Ad- 
dress, liincoln's Gettysburg 
Speech, etc. 

79 & SO Scott's liady of the I^ake* 

(Condensed.) 
81 & 82 Scott's Marmlon* (Oon* 
densed.) 

83 & 84 Pope's i:ssay on Man. 

86 Shelley's Skylark, Adonais, and 

other Poems. 

86 Dickens's Cricket on the 

Hearth. 

87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style* 

88 Lamb's Essays of Ella. 

89 Cowper's Task, Book II, 

90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems* 

91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and 

Sir Galahad. 

92 Addison's Cato. 

93 Irving' s Westminster Abbey, 

and Christ D??^? ?' ' - 

94 & 95 Macaulay's Eari .c ^ 

ham. Second Essay." 

96 Early English Ballads. 

97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Snrrer* 

(Selected Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 

99 C ax ton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 

101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con- 

densed.) 

102-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- 
ton. 

104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- 
well's Johnson. 



107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- 
cliffe's Bible. (Selections.) 

108-109 Macaulay's Essay on Fred- 
erick the Great. 

110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- 
tes. I 

112-113-114 Franklin's Antobiog- 
raphy. 

115-116 Herodotus's Stories of 
Croesus, Cyrus, and Babylon, 

117 Irving' s Alhambra. 

118 Burke's Present Discontents. 

119 Burke's Speech on Concilia- 
tion with American Colonies, 

120 Macaulay's Essay on Byron. 
121-122 Motley's Peter the Great. 

123 Emerson's American Scholar. 

124 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 
125-126 Liongfellow's Evangeline. 
12'/ Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. 

(Selected.) 

128 Tennyson's — The Coming of 
Arthur, and The Passing of 
Arthur. 

129 luowell's The Tision of Sir 
i^aanfal, and other Poems. 

130 Whittier's Songs of I«abor, and 
other Poems. 

131 Words of Abraham I^lncoln, 

132 Grimm's German Fairy Tales* 
(Selected.) 

133 JEsop's Fables. (Selected.} 

134 Arabian T^ights. Aladdin, or 
the Wonderful liamp, 

135-36 The Psalter. 
137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con- 
densed.) 

139-40 Scott's Kenilworth, ((Don- 

densed.) 

141-42 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- 
densed.) 

143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 
144-45 Pope's Iliad of Homer. 

(Selections from Books I.-VIII.) 

t our Medifeval Chroniclers. 
147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 
148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised 

Version.) « 
160 Bow-AVow and Mew-Mew. By 

Georgiana M. Craik. 

151 The NUrnberg Stove. ByOuida. 

152 Hayne's Speech. To which 
Webster replied. 

153 Alice's Adventures in Won- 
derland. (Condensed,) By Lewis 

' Carroll. 

154-155 Defoe's Journal of the 
' Plague. (Condensed.) 
156-157 More's Utopia. (Con- 
densed.) 



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Kellogg & Reed's The English Language, 
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Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. 

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MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. (54-155. 





The Plague in London 

BY 

Daniel Defoe 




NEW YORK 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 

43, 45, AND 47 East Tenth Street 




Copyright, 1895, by Maynard, Merrill, & Co. 



INTRODUCTION 



BY THE EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME 

LIFE OF DEFOE. 

DANIEL DEFOE was born in Eore Street, in Cripplegate, 
in the year 1660 or 1661. His father, James Foe, 
the son of a Northamptonshire farmer who owned liis own 
land, had settled in London, Avhere he carried on the trade 
of a butcher. The family belonged to the Puritan party, 
and when the Act of Uniformity in 1662 compelled many 
ministers to resign their livings, James Foe was staunch to 
his parish minister, Dr. Annesley, the vicar of St. Giles, 
Cripplegate, who after resigning his living preached in a 
meeting-house in Little St. Helen's.! 

To the early teaching of this divine, Defoe doubtless owed 
his love for religious liberty and the strong belief in Provi- 
dence which is so apparent in his writings. He had too a 
genuine love for his pastor, and one of his earliest works is 
an elegy, Avritten in 1697, shortly after Dr. Annesley's death, 
in which he speaks of him as "the best of ministers and 
best of men." 

Defoe was sent at the age of fourteen to a school at 
Newington Green, kept by a Mr. Morton, another ejected 
divine. If his character was influenced by the teaching of 

* Defoe adopted the prefix to his name about 1703. 
' Dr. Annesley was grandfather of John Wesley. 



iv 



INTRODUCTION 



his pastoTj it is no less clear that his mastery over the English 
language was due in great measure to his schoolmaster, who 
made it one of the distinguishing features of his school that 
everything should be learnt in English; and though Defoe 
and his schoolfellows seem to have been fairly well versed in 
Latin and Greek, as well as in French and Spanish, it was 
said in later years by Defoe that more pupils of that school 
excelled as masters of the English tongue than of any school 
of his time. One of these pupils was Samuel Wesley. 

Defoe had been originally intended for the ministry, but 
when he left school, this idea being abandoned, he was 
trained for business; and in 1685 he was a hose-factor on 
his own account. But he was very much more than a mere 
man of business, for throughout his career he took the 
liveliest and most active interest in the political questions of 
the day, taking his stand always on the side of civil and 
religious freedom. 

The deatli of Charles II., and the accession of his brother, 
an avowed adherent of the Church of Eome, threatened the 
overthrow of the English Church, and Defoe, with some of 
his schoolfellows, joined the forces of Monmouth, who was 
hailed in the West of England as the champion of the 
Protestant cause. His schoolfellows were executed at the 
Bloody Assize, but Defoe escaped; and when William of 
Orange landed we find him as a volunteer in a troop of 
horse, escorting William into London. 

During the reign of William III. he wrote many 
pamj)hlets, chiefly of a political nature, in support of the 
king, tlie most important being the True-horn EnglisJman^ 
a satire on those who wished to discredit William as a 
foreigner. He was also actively engaged in trade with 
Spain, and in his visits to that country doubtless gained the 



INTRODUCTION. 



V 



knowledge of Spaniards and their affairs, which is so con- 
spicuous in the story of Eobinson Crusoe. He was, however, 
unfortunate enough to become bankrupt, and was for a time 
compelled to hide in Bristol. While there he lived at the 
Eed Lion, in Castle Street, and was known as the " Sunday 
Gentleman," from the fact that Sunday was the only day on 
which debtors could appear in the streets without fear of 
arrest. His debts were afterwards honourably discharged. 

After this he became accountant to the Commissioners of 
the Glass Duty, and was besides concerned in a factory at 
Tilbury for the manufacture of Dutch tiles, which, since the 
Ee volution, were much in vogue. This seems to have been 
a thriving undertaking. However, in Queen Anne's reign, 
he was compelled to begin the world over again. By the 
Test and Corporation Act of 1661 no one was admitted to 
any municipal office till he had received the Sacrament, 
according to the rites of the Established Church. As some 
Dissenters, however, thought themselves justified in con- 
forming, in order to qualify themselves for office, a Bill was 
proposed (1702) to suppress this "Occasional Conformity." 
Defoe attacked this intolerant spirit in a bitterly satirical 
pamphlet, called The Shortest Way icith the Dissenters, in 
which, by apparently advocating the severest measures, he 
exposed the narrowness and bigotry of the Church party. 
For this pamplilet he was prosecuted by the Government, 
and condenmed to stand in the pillory tliree times, to pay a 
fine of 200 marks, and to be imprisoned during the Queen's 
pleasure. Y/hile in prison waiting for the execution of this 
sentence he wrote a Hymn to the Pillory^ in which he shows 

/ that (( Contempt, that false new word for shame, 

Is, without crime, an empty name, 
A shadow to amuse mankind.'* 



vi 



INTRODTCTION". 



That he is to be pilloried for speaking the truth, and that 
his enemies, 

" The men that placed him here 
Are friends unto the times. 
But at a loss to find his guilt 
They can't commit his crimes." 

When the day of his exposure came, the mob, instead of 
pelting him, covered him with flowers and drank his health. 
This event, however, involved the loss of his business, and 
as it how became necessary for him to use his pen as a means 
of earning his living, to this misfortune may fairly be 
ascribed the creation of the series of novels or imaginary 
histories on which his fame as an author chiefly depends. 
The first of these was an account of the "Apparition of 
Mrs. Yeale the next day after her death to Mrs. Bargrave at 
Canterbury." This had so strong an air of truth about it 
that it was accepted as a narration of fact; and as the 
apparition happened to speak to Mrs. Eargrave of "tlio 
comfort in parti-cular they received from Drelincourt's Book 
of Deat\ which was the best on that subject ever written," 
Defoe's story was reprinted and prefixed to the fourth 
edition of Drelincourt's book. Other stories followed, and 
Defoe also wrote a journal called the Review^ which appeared 
for nine years, and may justly entitle him to be called the 
father of the British essayists. After being again prosecuted 
by the Government in 1713, and this time for holding the 
very opinions which he attacked in his writings, Defoe 
devoted himself almost entirely to writing stories, even the 
names of which cannot be here enumerated. The first 
volume of Robinson Crusoe appeared in 1719, and went 
through four editions in four months. The Journal of the 
Plaque Year was written in 1722, and being published 



mXEODUCTION. 



vu 



anonymously was generally accepted as tlie narrative of an 
eye-witness. His numerous writings seem to have placed 
him in easy circumstances, and the last years of his hf e were 
spent in a fine house at Stoke Xewinsjton. He died in 1731, 
and was buried in Bunhill Fields. 

THE JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. 

This work appeared under the following circumstances. 
In the year 1720 Marseilles was visited by the plague, which 
devastated the city. This event caused great alarm in 
London, as the great plague which raged with such violence 
in 1665 had not entirely disappeared in England till 1679, 
and the memory of it was still fresh in the popular mind. 
This alarm was the occasion for the publication of many 
books and pamphlets on the great plague, among which may 
be noted especially an English translation of Dr. Hodge's 
Loimologia] an Essay on the Different Causes of Pestilential 
Distemper^ with Remarks on the Infection now in France^ by 
Dr. Quincey ; a Collection of very Valuable and Scarce 
Pieces Relating to the Last Plague in the Year 1665 ; and 
a Latin Dissertation on the Plague, by AYalter Harris. 
Defoe seized the opportunity thus presented to write a 
narrative of the plague which should be not only a true 
account of the events of the year, but should appeal to the 
mind of the reader as the experiences of an eye-witness. 
He therefore supposes his story to be the journal of a 
London tradesman who stayed in the City during that 
terrible year. 

In 1665 he was only four years old, so he can hardly have 
had any very accurate recollection of the time, and as a 
matter of fact he seems to have largely drawn his informa- 



Vlll 



INTEODUCTIOX. 



tion from tlie wca-ks above mentionedj especially from the 
Loimologia. The orders of the Lord Mayor, which he prints 
in full (they are omitted in our volume), are taken verbatim 
from the Colhdion of very Vcduahle and Scarce Pieces. He 
also probably made use of various tracts and pamphlets, 
which were published shortly after the Plague : e.g., God's 
Terrible Voice in t/ie Ci^iJ. by Thomas Vincent, a clergvman 
who seems to have remained at his post while the pt-:il-nue 
lasted; Londorfs Lord, have Mtrcy upon us. an account of 
all the plagues from 1592 to 1665: and GoLs Voice to fh^: 
City^ published in 1665, a sermon calling London to repent- 
ance for her sins. It may tlitu'efc-re be safely assumed that 
although this work is nc't really the journal of a citizen Avho 
"continued all the whik in Lcaidon,'" '''^ it really does give on 
the whole a true accoant of the times. It only remains 
tliernfore to consider how Ltefoe, to quote a conttnip<:rary 
critic, made himself so perfect a master of the art "of f urging 
a story and imposmg it on the Avorld for truth."' It has been 
already stated that the world vu^s so imposed upon, and Dr. 
Mead, who vras a contemporary of Defoe, Cjuoted the boc^k as 
the narrative of an eye-witness. Anyone who reads the 
story will notice many ingenious devices employed by Defoe 
to give the stc-ry the stamp of truth. Instances of this are 
his reticence, /b/' the sod:e of ilie farrdly. as to the name of the 
alderman who hanged himstlf (p. 49; ; his reasons for stating 
so fully his own course of acuiui (p. 8); his objection to 
having his own meditations maLL- puisne (p. -14:) ; and some 
of the notes he appends to his story of the three poor men 
of Wapping (p. 81). 

He has also a curious habit of repeating himself, which is 
exactly what one woidd expect in notes from a journal 
* See note. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IX 



Again, as Horace has told us, it is no easy task proprie 
communia dicer e ; but of tliis art Defoe was a complete 
master. He could enumerate the most trivial details, so as not 
only not to weary the reader, but even to impress him T\uth 
the belief that they are the natural and appropriate way for 
an eye-witness to record the event. In this he was helped 
to a great degree by his thorough knowledge of the locality, 
and topogi^aphical details are inserted with great effect. 
Again, he could not actually have remembered much of the 
plague, but he could doubtless recall hearing it constantly 
talked of in his boyhood; and remarks such as those about 
the court (p. 14), and their want of thankfulness to God for 
preservation from the pestilence, may well be actual recol- 
lections of sayings of his own father. The reader will also 
notice the obvious connection between Defoe's early hfe and 
the detailed account of the butchers in "\Vhitechapel. But 
the great secret of his power lay in his abihty to project 
liiiiiseK, so to speak, into the circumstances of which he urates. 
Characters in a novel are not necessarily reflections of the 
author's own individuality, but both Robinson Crusoe, and 
to a still gnreater extent the saddler of AVhitechapel, are to 
all intents and purposes Defoe himself. He seems to have 
imagined himself to be the hero of liis story, and then to 
have produced a most faithful account of what his own 
thoughts and actions would have been. In the saddler of 
"Whitechapel we can see the reflection of Defoe's strong 
religious tendency, his upright character as a business-man, 
and his steady and unwavering adherence to a plan once 
formed. The circumstances narrated are facts, and the hero 
is a picture from life, the only fiction being the connection 
between the man and the story. 



X 



INTKODUCTION. 



DEFOE'S STYLE. 

Defoe's style is distinguislied by tlie use of vigorous and 
pure Engiisli, with little or no trace of those French in- 
fluences which were so prominent after the Eestoration. 
His language and imagery are often drawn from the Bible. 
This is partly due to his early training, and partly also it 
is his natural Avay of expressing himself. But above all it 
is the result of his dramatic instmct which led him to re- 
produce the Puritanic habit of speech, a habit which, though 
nearly obsolete in 1720, was doubtless characteristic of 
Dissenters for some years after the Eestoration. He has 
too a curiQus way of digressing, which adds to rather than 
detracts from the charms of his style, t^his is less apparent 
in our volume, as it contains little more than one-third of 
the original ; but a notable instance will be found in the 
story of the three poor men of ^Yapping, which is twice 
introduced, and then laid aside for other matters. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS. 



Heke Defoe has to deal with a story of such intrin- 
sically tragic interest that all his details become affect- 
ing. . . . This book^ more than any of the others, 
shows a skill in selectiag telling incidents. We are 
sometimes in doubt Avhether the particular details which 
occur in other stories are not put in rather by good 
luck than from a due perception of their value. He 
thus resembles a sayage, who is as much pleased with a 
glass bead as with a piece of gold; but in the ^His- 
tory of the Plague ^ every detail goes straight to the 
mark. At one point he cannot help diverging into the 
story of three poor men who escaped into the fields, and 
giving us, with his usual relish, all their rambling con- 
versations by the way. For the most part, however, he 
is less diffusive and more pointed than usual; the great- 
ness of the calamity seems to have given more intensity 
to his style; and it leaves all the impression of a genuine 
narrative, told by one who has, as it were, just escaped 
from the valley of the shadow of death with the awe 
still upon him and every terrible sight and sound fresh 
in his memory. The amazing truthfulness of the style 
is here in its proper place; we wish to be brought as 
near as may be to the facts ; we want good realistic 
painting more than fine sentiment. The story reminds 
us of certain ghastly photographs published during the 
American war which had been taken on the field of 
battle. They gave a more forcible taste of the horrors 
of war than the most thrilling pictures drawn from the 
fancy. In such cases we only wish the narrator to stand 



xii 



CBtTlOAL OPimONS. 



as much as possible on one side and just draw up a bit 
of the curtain which conceals his gallery of horrors/^ — 
Hours in a Library : Leslie Stephe^^. 

" PosTEKiTY has separated the wheat from the chaff 
of Defoe's writings: his political tracts have sunk 
into oblivion; but his works of fiction still charm by 
their air of truth and the simple natural beauty of their 
style. As a novelist, he was the father of Eichardson, 
and partly of Fielding; as an essayist, he suggested the 
Tattler and Spectator; and in grave irony, he may have 
given to Swift his first lessons. The intensity of feel- 
ing characteristic of the dean — his merciless scorn and 
invective and fierce misanthropy — were unknown to 
Defoe, who must have been of a cheerful and sanguine 
temperament; but in identifying himself with his per- 
sonages, whether on sea or land, and depicting their ad- 
ventures, he was not inferior to Swift. His imagination 
had no vision of surpassing loveliness, nor any rich com- 
binations of humor and eccentricity; yet he is equally 
at home in the plain scenes of English life, in the wars 
of the cavaliers, in the haunts of dissipation and infamy, 
in the roving adventures of the buccaneers, and in the ap- 
palling visitations of the Great Plague. The account of 
the plague has often been taken for a genuine and au- 
thentic history; and even Lord Chatham believed the 
^Memoirs of a Cavalier' to be a true narrative.'' — 
Chambers's Encyclopedia. 

Defoe was essentially a journalist. He wrote for the 
day, and for the greatest interest of the greatest number 
of the day. He always had some shij) sailing with the 
passing breeze, and laden with a useful cargo for the 
coast upon which the wind chanced to be blowing. |Tf 
the Tichborne trial had happened in his time, we should 



CRITICAL OPINIONS. 



xm 



certainly have had from him an exact history of the 
boyhood and surprising adventures of Thomas Castro, 
commonly known as Sir Eoger, which would have come 
down to us as a true record, taken, perhaps, by the 
chaplain of Portland prison from the convict^s own lips. 
It would have had such an air of authenticity, and 
would have been corroborated by such an array of trust- 
worthy witnesses, that nobody in later times could have 
doubted its truth. | Defoe always wrote what a large 
number of people were in a mood to read. All his writ- 
ings, with so few exceptions that they may reasonably 
be supposed to fall within the category, were pieces de 
cir Constance, Whenever any distinguished person died 
or otherwise engaged public attention, no matter how 
distinguished, whether as a politician, a criminal, or a 
divine, Defoe lost no time in bringing out a biography.| 
It was in such emergencies that he produced his 
memoirs of Charles XII., Peter the Creat, Count Patkul, 
the Duke of Shrewsbury, Baron de Goertz, the Eev. 
Daniel Williams, Captain Avery, the King of the 
Pirates; Dominique Cartouche, Eob Koy, Jonathan 
Wild, Jack Sheppard, Duncan Campbell. When the 
day had been fixed for the Earl of Oxford^s trial for 
high treason, Defoe issued the fictitious minutes of the 
Secret Negotiations of Mons. Mesnager at the English 
Court during his ministry. We owe the ^ Journal of the 
Plague in 1665 ' to a visitation which fell upon France 
in 1721, and caused much apprehension in England. 
The germ which in his fertile mind grew into ' Eobinson 
Crusoe ^ fell from the real adventures of Alexander Sel- 
kirk, whose solitary residence of forty years on the island 
of Juan Fernandez was a nine-days^ wonder in the reign 
of Queen Anne.'^ — Daniel Defoe: by William Minto. 



"After ' Rolinson Crusoe,' his 'History of the 



xiv 



CRITICAL OPINIONS. 



Plague ^ is the finest of all liis works. It has an epic 
grandeur^ as well as heart-breaking familiarity^ in its 
style and matter.^^ — W. Hazlitt in Educational Eeviezc, 



Defoe's Account of Himself. 

"I AM a stoick/' says Defoe, "in whatever may be the 
event of things. Fll do and say what I think is a debt 
to justice and truth, without the least regard to clamor 
and reproach; and as I am utterly unconcerned at 
human opinion, the people that throw away their breath 
so freely in censuring me may consider of some better 
im23rovement to make of their passions than to waste 
them on a man that is both above and below the reach 
of them. I know too much of the world to expect good 
in it, and have learnt to value it too little to be con- 
cerned at the evil. I have gone through a life of won- 
ders and am the subject of a vast variety of providences. 
I have been fed more by miracle than Elijah, when the 
ravens were his purveyors. I have some time ago 
summed up the scenes of my life in this distich: 

* Xo man has tasted differing fortunes more; 
And thirteen times I have been rich and poor.' 

" In the school of affliction I have learnt more jDhiloso- 
phy than at the academy and more divinity than from 
the pulpit: in prison I have learnt that liberty does not 
consist in open doors and the egress and regress of loco- 
motion. I have seen the rougli side of the world as 
well as the smooth; and have, in less than a year, tasted 
the difference between the closet of a king and the dun- 
geon of Newgate*^^ 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE 



IT was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, 
among the rest of my neighbours, heard, in ordinary 
discourse, that the plague was returned again in Holland ; 
for it had been very violent there, and particularly at 
Amsterdam and Eotterdam, in the year 1663, whither they 5 
say it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the 
Levant, among some goods which were Ijrought home by 
their Turkey lleet ; others said it was l)rought from Gandia ; 
others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it come ; 
but all agreed, it was come into Holland again. 10 

We had no such tlimg as printed newspapers in those 
days to sjDread rumours and reports of things ; and to improve 
them by the invention of men as I have lived to see practised 
since. But such things as these were gathered from the 
letters of merchants and others who corresponded abroad, 15 
and from them was handed about by word of mouth only, 
so that things did not spread mstantly over the whole nation 
as they do now. But it seems that the Government had a 
true account of it, and several councils were held about ways 
to prevent its coming over, but all was kept very private. 20 
Hence it was that this rumour died off again, and people 
began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned 
in and that we hoped was not true, till the latter end of 
November or the beginning of December, 1664, when two 
men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long-acre, 25 
or rather at the upper end of Drury-lane. The family they 
were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but 
as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbour- 
hood, the Secretaries of State gat knowledge of it; and 

B 



2 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



concerning themselves to inquire al)Out it, in order to be 
certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were 
ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they 
did ; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upc»n both 
5 the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publiclv, 
that they died of the pLague ; whereupon it was given in to 
the parisli-clerk, and he also returned them t<:> the hall ; and 
it was prmted in the weekly Ijill of mortality in the usual 
manner, thus : — 

10 Plague^ 2. Parishes infected, 1." 

The people showed a great concern at this, and began to 
be alarmed all over the town, and the more, T>ecause in the 
last week in^ December, 1664, another man dird in the saine 
house, and of the same distemper : and then avh Averp easy 

15 again for about six weeks, when none having died Avitli any 
marks of infection, it Avas said the distemper Avas gnne ; Ijiit 
after that, I think it Avas abnut the 12th of Tt^bniary, 
another died in another house, but in the same parish, and 
hi the same manner. 

20 This turned the people's eyes pretty much toAvar<ls that 
end of the town; and the Aveekly bills shoAving an in<']t'a>e 
of burials in St. Giles's parish more than usual, it brgaii to 
be suspected that the plague Avas among the people at tliat 
end of the toAAUi ; and that many had died of it, though 

25 they had taken care to keep it as much from tlie knoAvLnlge 
of the public as possible ; this possessed the heads of the 
people A^ery much, and feAV cared to go through Drury-lane, 
or the other streets suspected, unless they had extraordinary 
business that obliged them to it. 

30 HoAvever, all this Avent off again, and the Aveather proA'ing 
cold, and the frost, A\diicli began in December, still con- 
tinuing A^ery severe, even till near the end of Feliruary, 
attended Avith sharp tliougli moderate winds, the bills 
decreased again, and the City grcAV healthy, and everylK)dy 

35 began to look upon the danger as good as over ; only that 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



3 



■still the burials in St. Giles's continued high : from the 
beginning of April especially, they stood at twenty-five each 
week, till the week from the ISth to the 25th, when there 
was buried in St. Giles's parish thirty, Avhereof two of the 
plague, and eight of the spotted fever, which was looked 5 
upon as the same thing ; likewise the number that died of 
the sj^otted fever in the whole increased, being eight the 
week before, and twelve the week above-named. 

This alarmed us all again, and terrible apprehensions were 
among the people, especially the weather being now changed 10 
and growing warm, and the summer being at hand : how 
ever, the next week there seemed to be some hopes again, 
the bills were low, the number of the dead in all was but 
388, there was none of the plague, and ljut four of the 
spotted fever. 15 

But the folloAving week it returned again, and the dis- 
temper was spread into two or three other parishes, viz., 
St. Andrew's-Holborn, St. Clement's-Danes, and to the great 
affliction of the City, one died within the walls, in the 
parish of St. Mary- Wool-Church, that is to say, in Bear- 20 
ibinderdane, near the Stocks Market ; in all there was nine 
of the plague, and six of the spotted fever. It was, how- 
ever, upon enquiry, found that this Frenchman, who died in 
Eear-bmder-lane, was one who, having lived in Long-acre, 
near the mfected houses, had removed for fear of the 25 
distemper, not knowing that he was already infected. 

This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was 
temperate, variable, and cool enough, and the people had 
still some hopes. That which encouraged them was that 
the City was healthy. The whole ninety-seven parishes 30 
buried but fifty-four, and we began to hope, that as it was 
chiefly among the people at that end of the town, it might 
go no farther : and the rather because the next week, 
which was from the 9th of May to the 16 th, there died but 
three, of which not one within the whole City or liberties ; 35 
and St. Andrew's buried but fifteen, which was very low. 
'Tis true St. Giles's buried two-and- thirty, but still, as there 
was but one of the plague, people began to be easy ; the 



4 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUK 



whole bill also was very low, for the week "before the bill 
was but 347, and the week above mentioned bnt 343. We 
continued in these hopes for a few days ; but it was but for 
a few, for the peoj^le were no more to }ye deceived thus ; 
5 they searched the houses, and found that the plague was 
really spread every way, and that many died of it every 
day : so that now all our extenuations abated, and it was no 
more to be concealed ; nay, it quickly appeared that the 
infection had spread itseK beyond all hopes of abatement; 

10 that in the parish of St. Giles's it was gotten into several 
streets, and several families lay all sick together; and, 
accordingly, in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing 
l->egan to show itself. There was indeed but fourteen set 
doAvii of the plague, but this was all knavery and collusion, 

15 for in St. Giles's parish they buried forty in all, whereof it 
was certain most of them died of the plague, though they 
were set down of other distem] -ers ; and though the number 
of all the burials were not increased above thkty-two, and 
the whole bill lieing but 385, yet there was fourteen of the 

20 spotted fever, as well as fourteen of the plague ; and we 
took it for granted, upon the whole, that there was fifty 
died that week of the plague. 

The next bill was fi^om the 23rd of May to the 30tii, 
when the numl^er of the plague was seventeen; bnt the 

25 burials ui St. Giles's were fifty-three, a frightful number ! of 
whom they set down but nine of the plague ; but on an 
examination more strictly by the justices of the peace, and 
at the Lord ]\Iayor's request, it was found there were twenty 
more, who were really dead of the plague in that parish, 

30 hut had been set down of the spotted fever, or other dis- 
tempers, besides others concealed. 

But those were triflino: thin£:!:s to what followed inmie- 
diately after ; for now the weather set in hot, and from the 
first week m June, the infection spread in a dreadful 

35 manner, and the bills rise high, the articles of the fever, 
spotted fever, and teeth, l>egan to swell ; for all that conld 
conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighbonrs 
shunning and refusing to converse with them ; and also to 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGtTE. 



5 



prevent authority sliiitting up their houses, which, though it 
was not yet practised, yet was threatened, and people were 
extremely terrified at the thoughts of it. 

The second week in June, the parish of St. Giles's, where 
still the weight, of the infection lay, buried 120, whereof, 5 
though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody 
said there had been 100 at least, calculating it from the 
usual number of funerals in that parish as above. 

Till this week the City continued free, there having never 
any died except that one Frenchman, who I mentioned 10 
before, within the whole ninety-seven parishes. Now there 
died four within the City, — one in Wood-street, one in 
Fenchurch- street and two in Crooked - lane ; Southwark 
was entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of 
the water. 15 

1 lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate 
Church and Whitechapel-bars, on the left hand or north side 
of the street ; and, as the distemper had not reached to that 
side of the City, our neighbourhood continued very easy ; 
but at the other end of the town their consternation was 20 
very great; and the richer sort of people, especially the 
nobility and gentry, from the west part of the City, thronged 
out of town, with their families and servants in an unusual 
manner ; and this was more particularly seen in White- 
chapel ; that is to say, the Broad street where I lived ; 25 
indeed nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with 
goods, women, servants, children, (%c. ; coaches fiUed with 
people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and 
all hurrying away ; then empty waggons and carts appeared, 
and spare horses with servants, who, it was apparent, were 30 
returning or sent from the countries to fetch more people : 
besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, some 
alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, all 
loaded with baggage, and fitted out for travelling, as any 
one might perceive by their appearance. 35 

This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and 
as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morn- 
ing to night, for indeed there was nothing else of moment to 



6 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUEv 



be seen, it filled me Avith very serious thoughts of the misery 
that was coming upon the City, and the unhappy condition 
of those that would be left in it. 

This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that 
5 there was no getting at the Lord Mayor's door without 
exceeding difficulty, there was such pressing and crowding 
there to get passes and certificates of health, for such as 
travelled abroad ; for, without these, there was no being 
admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to 
10 lodge in any inn : now, as there had none died in the City 
for all this time, my Lord Mayor gave certificates of health 
without any difficulty, to all those who lived in the ninety- 
seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too, for a 
while. 

15 This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, 
all the month of May and June, and the more because it was 
rumoured that an order of the Government was to be issued 
out, to place turnpikes and barriers on the road, to prevent 
people's travelling; and that the towns on the road would 

20 not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing 
the infection along with them, though neither of these 
rumours had any foundation but in the imagination, espe- 
cially at first. 

I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning 
25 my own case, and how 1 should dispose of myself ; that is 
to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut 
up my house and flee, as many of my neighbours did. I 
have set this particular down so fully, because I know not 
but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if 
30 they come to be brought to the same distress, and to the 
same manner of making their choice, and therefore I desire 
this account may pass with them, rather for a direction to 
themselves to act by, than a history of my actings, seeing it 
may not be of one farthing value to them to note what 
85 became of me. 

I had two important things before me : the one was the 
carrying on my business and slio}), which was considerable, 
and in which was embarked all my effects in the world ; and 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



7 



the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a 
calamity, as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole 
City ; and which, however great it Avas, my fears, perhaps, as 
well as other people's, represented to be much greater than 
it could be • 6 

The first consideration was of great moment to me ; my 
trade was a saddler, and as my dealings Avere chiefly not by 
a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants, trading to 
. the English colonies in America, so my ett'ects lay very much 
in the hands of such. I was a single man 'tis true, but I 10 
had a family of servants, who I kept at my business, had a 
house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods ; and in short, 
to leave them all as things in such a case must be left, that 
is to say. without any overseer or jierson fit to be trusted 
with them, had been to hazard the loss, not only of my 15 
trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the 
world. 

I had an elder brotlier at the same time in London, and 
not many years before come over from Portugal ; and advising 
with him, his answer was in three words, the same that was 20 
given in another case quite ditferrnt (viz.), Mastti\ save 
thyself, ''^ In a word, he was for my retiring into the country, 
as he resolved to do himself, with his family, telling me 
what he had, it seems, heard aljroad, that the best preparation 
for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument 25 
of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted 
me : he told me the same thing, which I argued for my 
staying, viz., that I would trust God with my safety and 
health, was the strongest repulse to my pretensions of losing 
m}^ trade and my goods ; for, savs he, is it not as reasonable 30 
that you should trust God with the chance or risk of losing 
your trade, as that you should stay in so imminent a point of 
danger, and trust Him with your life 1 

I could not argue that I was m any strait, as to a place 
where to go, haAung several friends and relations in Xorth- 35 
amptonshire, Avhence our family first came from ; and 
particularly, I had an only sister in Lincolnshire, very 
willing to receive and entertain me. 



8 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



My brother, who had ah^eady sent his wife and two 
children into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, 
pressed my going very earnestly ; and I had once resolved to 
comply with his desires, but at that time could get no horse; 
5 for though it is true all the people did not go out of the city 
of London, yet I may venture to say, that in a manner all 
the horses did ; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or 
hired in the whole City for some weeks. Once I resolved to 
travel ©n foot with one servant, and, as many did, lie at no 

10 inn, but carry a soldier's tent with us, and so lie in the 
fields, the weather being very warm, and no danger from 
taking cold : I say, as many did, because several did so at 
last, especially those who had been in the armies in the war 
which had not been many years past ; and I must needs say, 

15 that speaking of second causes, had most of the people that 
travelled done so, the plague had not been carried into so 
many country towns and houses as it was, to the great 
damage, and indeed to the ruin of abundance of peo23le. 
But then my servant, who I had intended to take down 

20 Avith me, deceived me ; and being frighted at the increase of 
the distemper, and not knowmg Avhen I should go, he toolv 
other measures, and left me, so I was put off for that time ; 
and one way or other I always found that to appoint to 
go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as 

25 to disappoint and put it off again ; and this brings in a 
story which otherwise might be thought a needless digression, 
viz. about these disappointments being from Heaven. 

I mention this story also as the best method I can advise 
any person to take in such a case, especially, if he be one 

30 that makes conscience of his duty, and Avould be directed 
what to do in it, namely, tliat he should keep his eye upon 
the particular Providences Avhich occur at that time, and 
look upon them complexly, as they regard one another, and 
as they altogether regard the question l3efore him, and tlien 

35 I think he may safely take them for intimations from 
Heaven of wliat is liis unquestioned duty to do in such a 
case ; I mean as to going away from, or staying in, the place 
where we dwell, when visited with an infectious distemper. 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



9 



It came very warmly into my mind, one morning, as I 
was musing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended 
us without the direction or permission of Divine power, so 
these disappointments must have something in them extra- 
ordinary ; and I ought to consider whether it did not 5 
evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will 
of Heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in 
my thoughts, that if it really was from God that I should 
stay, He Avas able effectually to preserve me in the midst of 
all the death and danger that would surround me ; and that 10 
if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habit- 
ation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I 
believed to be Divine, it was a kind of flying from God, 
and that He could cause His justice to overtake me when 
and where He thought fit. 15 

These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again; and 
when I came to discourse with my brother again I told him, 
that I inclined to stay and take my lot in that station in 
which God had placed me ; and that it seemed to be made 
more especially my duty, on the account of what I 20 
have said. 

My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed 
at all I had suggested about its bemg an intimation from 
Heaven, and told me several stories of such foolhardy peo23le, 
as he called them, as I was : that I ought indeed to submit 25 
to it as a work of Heaven, if I had been any way disabled 
by distempers or diseases, and that then, not being able 
to go, I ought to acquiesce in the direction of Him, who 
having been my ]\laker, had an undisputed right of 
sovereignty in disposing of me ; and that then there had 30 
been no difficulty to determine which was the call of His 
providence, and which was not • but that I should take 
it as an intimation from Heaven that I should not go out of 
town, only because I could not hire a horse to go, or my 
fellow was run away that was to attend me, was ridiculous, 35 
since at the same time I had my health and limbs, and other 
servants, and might, with ease, travel a day or two on foot, 
and, having a good certificate of being in perfect health, 



10 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



might either hire a horse or take post on the road, as I 
thought fit. 

Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous conse- 
quences which attended the presumption of the Turks and 
5 Mahometans in Asia, and in other places, where he had been 
(for my brother, being a merchant, was a few ^^ears before, 
as I have already observed, returned from abroad, coming 
last from Lisbon), and how presuming upon their professed 
predestinating notions, and of every man's end being pre- 

10 determined, and unalterably beforehand decreed, they would 
go unconcerned into infected places, and converse with 
infected persons, by which means they died at the rate of 
ten- thousand or fifteen thousand a- week ; whereas the 
Europeans or Christian merchants, who kept themselves 

15 retired and reserved, generally esca]3ed the contagion. 

Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions 
again, and I began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all 
things ready ; for, in short, the infectifjn increased round 
me, and the bills were risen to almost 700 a-week, and my 

20 brother told me he would venture to stay no longer. I 
desired him to let me consider of it but till the next day, 
and I would resolve ; and as I had already prepared every 
thing as well as I could, as to my business, and who to 
intrust my affairs with, I had but little to do but to resolve. 

25 I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mmd, 
irresolute, and not knowing what to do ; I had set the 
evening wholly apart to consider seriously al30ut it, and was 
all alone ; for already people had, as it were, hy a general 
consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after 

30 sunset ; the reasons I sliall have occasion to say more uf 
by- and -by. 

In the retirement of this evening I endeavoured to resolve, 
first, what was my duty to do, and I stated the arguments 
with which my brother had pressed me to go into the 
85 country, and I set against them the strong impressions 
which I had on my mind for staying; the visible call I 
seemed to have from the particular circumstance of my 
calling, and the care due from me for the preservation of 



3\rEM0IHS OF THE PLAGUE. 



11 



my effects, which were, as I might say, my estate ; also the 
intimations which I thought I had from Heaven, that to me 
signified a kind of direction to venture ; and it occurred to 
me, that if I had what I might call a direction to stay, I 
ought to. suppose it contained a promise of being preserved, 5 
if I obeyed. 

This lay close to me, and my mind seemed more and more 
encouraged to stay than ever, and supported with a secret 
satisfaction that I should be kept ; add to this, that turning 
over the Bible which lay before me, and while my thoughts 10 
were more than ordinarily serious upon the question, I cried 
out, "AYell, I know not what to do; Lord, direct me and 
the like ; and at that juncture I happened to stop turning 
over the book, at the ninety-first Psalm, and casting my eye 
on the second verse, I read on to the seventh verse ex- 15 
elusive ; and after that included the tenth, as follows : "I 
will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress : my 
God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee 
from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pesti- 
lence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his 20 
wungs shalt thou trust : his truth shall be thy shield and 
buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night ; 
nor for the arrow that flieth by day ; nor for the pestilence 
that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that 
wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and 25 
ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come nigh 
thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the 
reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, 
which is my refuge, even the most High, thy hal)itation ; 
there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come 30 
nigh thy dwelling," &c. 

I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I 
resolved that I would stay in the town, and casting myself 
entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Almighty, 
would not seek any other shelter whatever ; and that, as my 35 
times were in His hands. He was as able to keep me in a 
time of the infection as in a time of health ; and if He did 
not think fit to deliver me, still I was in His hands, and it 



12 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



was meet He should do with me as should seem good to 
Him. 

With this resolution I went to bed; and I was farther 
confirmed in it the next day, by the woman being taken ill 
6 with whom I intended to intrust my house and all my 
affairs ; but I had a farther obligation laid on me on the 
same side, for the next day I found myself very much out 
of order also ; so that if I would have gone away, I could 
not, and I continued ill three or four days, and this entirely 

10 determined my stay ; so I took my leave of my brother, 
who went away to Dorking, in Surrey, and afterwards 
fetched a round farther into Buckinghamshire or Bedford- 
shire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family. 
It was a very ill time to be sick in, for if any one com- 

15 jDlained, it was immediately said he had the plague ; and 
though I had indeed no symptoms of that distemper, yet, 
being very ill, both in my head and in my stomach, I was 
not without apprehension that I really was infected ; but in 
about three days I grew better ; tlie third night I rested 

20 well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed ] the appre- 
hensions of its being the infection went also quite away 
with my illness, and I went about my busmess as usual. 

These things, however, put off all my thouglits of going 
into the country ; and my brother also being gone, I had no 

25 more debate either with him, or witli myself, on tliat 
subject. 

It was now mid-July, and the plague, which had chiefly 
raged at the other end of the town, and, as I said before, in 
the parishes of St. Giles's, St. Andrew's -Holborn, and 

30 towards Westminster, now began to come eastward towards 
the part where I lived. It was to be observed, indeed, 
that it did not come straight on towards us ; for the City, 
that is to say, witliin the walls, was indifferent healthy still ; 
nor was it got then very much over tlie water into South- 

35 wark ; for though there died tliat week 1,268 of all 
distempers, whereof it might be sui)})osed above 900 died of 
tlie plague ; yet tliere was but 28 in the whole City, within 
the walls; and but 19 in South wark, Lambeth parish 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



13 



included; whereas in the parishes of St. Giles's, and St. 
Martin's-in-the-Fields alone, there died 421. 

But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the out- 
parishes, which heing very populous, and fuller also of poor, 
the distemper found more to prey upon than in the City, as 5 
I shall ohserve afterward ; we perceived, I say, the distemper 
to draw our way, viz., l^y the parishes of Clerkenwell, 
Cripplegate, Shoreditcli, and Bishopsgate : wliich last two 
parishes joining to Aklgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the 
infection came at length to spread its utmost rage and 10 
violence in those parts, even when it abated at the western 
parishes, where it began. 

During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, 
our part of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the 
west part, I went ordinarily about the streets as my business 15 
required, and particularly went generally once in a day, or 
in two days, into the City, to my brother's house, which he 
had given me charge of, and to see if it was safe : and 
having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, 
and over most of the rooms, to see that all was well ; for 20 
though it be something wonderful to tell, that any shoukl 
have hearts so hardened in the midst of such a calamity, as 
to rob and steal, yet certain it is, that all sorts of villanies, 
and even levities and debaucheries, were then practised in 
the town, as oj^enly as ever ; I will not say quite as 25 
frequently, because the numbers of people were many ways 
lessened. 

But the City itself began now to be visited too — I mean 
within the walls ; but the number of people there were 
indeed extremely lessened by so great a multitude having 30 
been gone into the country ; and even all this month of 
July they continued to flee, though not in such multitudes 
as formerly. In August, indeed, they fled in such a manner, 
that I began to thmk there would be really none but 
magistrates and servants left in the City. 35 

As they fled now out of the City, so I should observe 
that the Court removed early, viz. in the month of June, 
and Avent to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve 



14 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 

them ; and the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as 
touch them ; for which I cannot say that I ever saw they 
showed any great token of thankfiihiess, and hardly 
anything of reformation, though they did not want heing 
5 told that their crying vices might, without breach of charity, 
be said to have gone far in bringing that terrible judgment 
upon the whole nation. 

The face of London was now mdeed strangely altered — 
I mean the whole mass of buildings, City, liberties, suburbs, 

10 Westminster, South wark, and altogether ; for as to the 
particular part called the City, or within the walls, that was 
not yet much infected ; but in the whole, the face of things, 
I say, was much altered ; sorrow and sadness sat upon every 
face ; and though some parts were not yet overwhelmed, yet 

If) all looked deeply concerned; and as we saw it apparently 
coming on, so every one looked on himself and his family 
as in the utmost danger. Were it possible to represent 
those times exactly to those who did not see them, and give 
the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented 

20 itself, it must make just impressions ujDon their minds, and 
fill them with surprise. London might well be said to be 
all in tears ; the mourners did not go about the streets, 
indeed, for nobody put on black, or made a formal dress 
of mourning for their nearest friends : but the voice of 

25 mourning was truly heard in the streets ; the shrieks of 
women and children at the windows and doors of their 
houses, where their dearest relations were perhaps dying, 
or just dead, were so frequent to be heard, as we passed the 
streets, that it was enough to j^ierce the stoutest heart in 

30 the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen 
almost in every house, especially in the first part of the 
visitation ; for, towards the latter end, men's hearts were 
hardened, and death was so always before their eyes, that 
they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of 

35 their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned 
the next hour. 

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the 
town, even when the sickness was chiefly there; and as th^ 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



15 



thing was new to me as well as to everybody else, it was a 
most surprising thing to see those streets, which Avere usually 
so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few people to be 
seen in them, that if I had been a stranger, and at a loss 
for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a 5 
whole street — I mean of the bye-streets — and see nobody to 
direct me, except watchmen, set at the doors of such houses 
as were shut up, of which I shall speak presently. 

One day, being at that part of the town, on some special 
business, curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, 10 
and, indeed, I walked a great way where I had no business ; 
I went up Holborn, and there the street was full of people ; 
but they walked in the middle of the great street, neither on 
one side or other, because, as I suppose, they would not 
mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with 15 
smells and scents from houses that might be infected. 

The Inns of Court were all shut up ; nor were very many 
of the lawyers in the Temple, or Lincoln's- inn, or Gray's-inn, 
to be seen there. Everybody was at peace ; there was no 
occasion for lawyers ; besides, it being the time of the 20 
vacation too, they were generally gone into the country. 
Wh(;le rows of houses in some places were shut close up, 
the inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left. 

AVhen I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not 
mean shut up by the magistrates, but that great numbers of 25 
persons followed the Court by the necessity of their employ- 
ments, and other dependencies : and as others retired really 
frighted with the distemper, it was a mere desolating of some 
of the streets : but the fright was not yet near so great in 
the City, abstractedly so called ; and particularly because, 30 
though they were at first in a most inexpressible consterna- 
tion, yet as I have observed that the distemper intermitted 
often at first, so they were, as it were, alarmed, and 
unalarmed again, and this several times, till it began to be 
familiar to them ; and that even when it appeared violent, 35 
yet seeing it did not presently spread into the City, or the 
east and south parts, the people began to take courage, and 
to be, as I may say, a little hardened. It is true, a vast 



16 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



many people fled, as I have observed, yet tliey Avere chiefly 
from the west end of the toAvn ; and from that we call the 
heart of the City, that is to say, among the wealthiest of the 
people, and such people as were unincumbered Avith trades 
5 and business ; but of the rest, the generality stayed, and 
seemed to abide the worst ; so that in the place we call the 
liberties and in the suburbs, in South wark, and in the east 
part, such as Wapping, Eatclifi'e, Stepney, Eotherhithe, and 
the -like, tlie people generally stayed, except here and there 
10 a few wealthy families, who, as above, did not depend upon 
business. 

But I must go back again to the beginning of this sur- 
prising time : — while the fears of the people were young, 
they were increased strangely by several odd accidents, 

15 which, put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole 
body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon 
their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground 
designed by Heaven for an Akeldama, doomed to be de- 
stroyed from the face of the earth; and that all that would 

20 be found in it would perish with it. I shall name Init a 
few of these things ; but sure they were so many, and so 
many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I 
have often wondered there was any, (women especially), 
left behind. 

25 In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for 
several months before the plague, as there did the year 
after another, a little before the fire; the old women, and 
the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, who 
I could almost call old women too, remarked (especially 

30 afterward, though not till both those judgments were over), 
that those two comets passed directly over the City, and 
that so very near the houses, that it was plain they im- 
ported something peculiar to the City alone : that the comet 
before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, 

35 and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow ; but that 
the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as 
others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious , and 
that accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment slow but 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE, 



17 



severe, terrible, and frigiitful, as was the plague : but the 
other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as the con- 
flagration ; nay, so particular some people were, that as they 
looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied, 
that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and 5 
could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they 
heard it; that it made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and 
terrible, though at a distance, and Tjut just perceivable. 

I saw both these stars, and 1 must confess, had so much 
of the common notion of such things in my head, that I 10 
was apt to look upon them as the f<^rerunners and Avarnings 
of God's judgments ; and especially when, after the plague 
had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like kind, 
I could not but say, God had not yet sufiiciently scourged 
tlie City. 15 

But I could not at the same time carry tliese things to 
the height that others did, knowing too, that natural causes 
are assigned by the astronomers for such things ; and that 
their motions, and even their revolutions are calculated, or 
pretended to be calculated ; so that they cannot be so 20 
perfectly called the forerimners, or foretellers, much less 
the procurers, of such events as pestilence, war, fire, and 
the like. 

But let my thoughts, and the thoughts of the philosophers 
be, or have been what they will, these things had a more 25 
than ordinary influence upon the minds of the common 
people, and they had almost universal melancholy appre- 
hensions of some dreadful calamity and judgment coming 
upon the City ; and this principally from the sight of this 
comet, and the little alarm that was given in December, by 30 
two people dying at St. Giles's, as above. 

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely 
increased by the error of the times ; in which, I think, the 
people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more 
addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations, dreams, 35 
and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since ; 
whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the 
follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say^ 





18 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not: 
but certain it is, books frighted them terribly ; such as 
" Lily's almanack ; Gadbury's alogical predictions , " 
Poor Eobin's almanack, and the like ; also several pre- 
5 tended religious books : one, entitled — " Come out of her, 
my people, lest you be partaker of her plagues;" another, 
called — * ' Fair Warning ; — another — ' ' Britain's Eem em- 
brancer," and many such ; all, or most part of which, 
foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the City ; nay, 

10 some Avere so enthusiastically bold as to run about the 
streets, with their oral predictions, pretending they were 
sent to preach to the City : and one in particular, who, like 
Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, — " Yet forty days, 
and LONDOI^ shall be destroyed." I will not be positive 

15 whether he said yet forty days, or yet a few days. Another 
run about naked, excej^t a pair of drawers about his Avaist, 
crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, 
who cried, "Woe to Jerusalem!" a little before the de- 
struction of that city ; so this poor naked creature cried, 

20 "0! the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more, 
but repeated those words continually with a voice and 
countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could 
ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at 
least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature 

25 several times in the streets, and would have spoke to him, 
but he would not enter into speech witli me, or any one 
else, but held on his dismal cries continually. 

These things terrified the people to the last degree ; and 
especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned 

30 already, they found one or two, in the bills, dead of the 
plague at St. Giles. 

Next to these public things were the dreams of old 
women, or, I should say, the interpretation of old women 
upon other people's dreams ; and these put abundance of 

35 people even out of their wits : some heard voices warning 
tliem to be gone, for that there would be such a plague 
in London so tliat the living would not be able to bury the 
dead : otliers saw apparitions in the air ; and I must bQ 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



19 



allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, 
that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights 
that never appeared ; but the imagination of the people 
was really turned wayward and possessed: and no wonder, 
if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw 5 
shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which 
had nothing in them but air and vapour. Here they told 
us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming out of 
a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There 
they saw hearses and cofiins in the air, carrying to be 10 
buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying 
unburied, and the like, just as the imagination of the poor 
terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon. 

**So h^^pochoiidriac fancies represent 
Ships, armies, battles, in the firmament ; 15 
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve, 
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve." 

I could fill this account with the strange relations such 
people gave every day of what they had seen ; and every 
one was so positive of their having seen what they pretended 20 
to see, that there was no contradicting them without 
breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and un- 
mannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on 
the other. One time, before the plague was begun (other- 
wise than as I have said in St. Giles's), I think it was in 25 
March, seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined with 
them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up 
into the air, to see what a woman told them appeared plain 
to her, which was an angel clothed in white, Avith a fiery 
sword in his hand, waving it, or brandishing it, over his 30 
head. She described every part of the figure to the life ; 
showed them the motion and the form ; and the poor ]3eople 
came into it so eagerly, and with so much readiness : " Yes, 
I see it all plainly," says one; "there is the sword as plain 
as can be." Another saw the angel. One saw his very 35 
face, and cried out, " What a glorious creature he was ! " 
one saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly 



20 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



as the rest, but perhaps, not with so much willingness to be 
imposed upon ; and I said indeed, that I could see nothing 
but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the 
sun upon the other part. The woman endeavoured to show 

6 it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which 
indeed if I had, I must have lied : but the woman turning 
upon me, looked in my face and fancied I laughed : in which 
her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, 
but was very seriously reflecting how the poor people were 

10 terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, 
she turned from me, called me profane fellow, and a scoifer : 
told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadfid 
judgments Ave re approaching ; and the despisers, such as I, 
should wonder and perish. 

15 The people about her seemed disgusted as Avell as she; 
and I found there was no persuading them that I did not 
laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by tliem 
than be able to undeceive tliem : so I left them ; and this 
appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself. 

20 Another encounter I had in the open day also and this \ 
was in going through a narrow passage from Petty-France 
into Eishopsgate churchyard, by a row of almshouses. 
There are two churchyards to Eishopsgate church, or parish ; 
one we go over to pass from the place called Pett3'-France 

25 into Eishopsgate-street, coming out just by the cliurch-door ; 
the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the 
almshouses are on the left ; and a d^varf-wall Avith a palisado ' 
on it, on the right hand, and the City Avail on the other side, 
more to the right. 

30 In this narroAv passage stands a man looking through i' 
betAveen the palisados into the burying-place ; and as many j 
people as tlie narroAvness of the passage Avould admit to j 
stop, Avithout liindering the passage of others, and he Avas i 
talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing now to one j 

35 place, then to another, and affirming that he saAv a ghost j 
Avalking upon such a gravestone there , he described the | 
shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that J 
it was the greatest matter of amazement to him in the 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



21 



world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a 
sudden he would cry, "There it is — now it conies this 
way : " then, 'Tis turned back : " till at length he persuaded 
the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he 
saw it, and another fancied he saw it ; and thus he came 5 
every day making a strange hubbub, considering it was in so 
narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven ; and 
then the ghost would seem to start, and as if he were called 
away, disappeared on a sudden. 

I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment 10 
that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance 
of any thing ; but so positive was this poor man, that he gave 
the people the vapours in abundance, and sent them away 
trembling and frighted ; till at length, few people that knew 
of it, cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody 15 
by night, on any account whatever. 

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the 
houses, and to the ground, and to the people ; plainly inti- 
mating, or else they so understanding it, that abundance of 
the people should come to be buried in that churchyard ; as, 20 
indeed, happened : but that he saAv such aspects, I must 
acknowledge, I never believed ; nor could I see anything of 
it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it, if 
possible. 

These things serve to show how far the people were really 25 
overcome with delusions ; and as they had a notion of the 
approach of a visitation, all their predictions ran upon a 
most dreadful plague, which should lay the whole City, and 
even the kmgdom waste : and should destroy almost all the 
nation, both man and beast. 30 

To this, as I said before, the astrologers added stories of 
the conjunctions of planets in a malignant mamier, and with 
a mischievous influence; one of which conjunctions was to 
happen, and did happen, in October, and the other in 
November, and they filled the people's heads with predictions 35 
on these signs of the heavens, intimating, that those con- 
junctions foretold drought, famine, and pestilence. In the 
first two of them, however, they were entirely mistaken, for 



22 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



vre had no droiiglity season, but in the begmnmg of the year 
a hard frost, which lasted from December almost to March : 
and after that, moderate weather, rather warm than hot, 
with refreshing winds, and m short, very seasonable weather ; 
5 and also several very great rams. 

Some endeavours were used to suppress the prmting of 
such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the 
dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, hut 
nothing was d':aie in it, as I am uiformed ; the Government 

10 being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I 
may say, all out of their wits already. 

IN" either can I acquit those ministers that, in their sermons, 
rather sunk, than lifted up the hearts of their hearers ; many 
of them, no doubt, did it ftjr the strengthening the resolution 

15 of the pe'jj'lH. and t^-}:•eL•iallv f<jr quickenuig them to repent- 
ance ; but It certainly answered nc>t their end, at least not m 
proportion to the mjiuy it did another way ; and, indeed, as 
God himself, through the whole Scriptures, rather draws to 
Him by uivitations, and calls to turn to Him and live, than 

20 drives us by terror and amazement, so, I must confess, I 
thought the ministers should liaA^e done also, imitatmg our 
Blessed Lord and Master in this, that His whole gospel is 
full of declarations from heaven of God's mercy and His 
readiness to receive penitents, and forgive them : complainmg, 

25 "Ye will not come imto Me, that ye may have life;" and 
that therefore His gospel is called the gospel of j)eace, and 
the gospel of gTace. 

Btit we had some good men, and that of all persuasions 
and opinions, whose discourses were full of terror : who 

30 spoke nothing but dismal things ; and as they brought the 
people together with a kind of horror, sent them away in j 
tears, prophesying nothing but evil tidings ; terrifying the j 
people with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, \ 
not guiding them, at least not enough, to cry to Heaven for 

35 mercy. 

It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us j 
in matters of religion ; innumerable sects, and divisions, and f 
separate opinions, prevailed among the people; the Church 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



23 



jf England was restored, indeed, with the Eestoration of the 
monarciiy. about four years before, but the ministers and 
preachers of the Presbyterians and Independents, and of all 
the other sorts of professions, had begun to gather separate 
societies, and erect altar against altar, and all those had their 5 
meetings for worship apart, as they have now, but not so 
many then, the Dissenters being not thoroughly formed into 
• a body as they are since; and those congregations which 
were thus gathered together were yet but few ; and even 
those that were, the Government did not allow, but endea- 10 
voured to suppress them, and shut up their meetings. 

But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a 
time, and many of the best and most valuable ministers and 
preachers of the Dissenters were suffered to go into the 
churches, where the incuml^ents were fled away, — as many 15 
were, not being able to stand it ; and the people flocked 
without distinction to hear them preach, not much incjuiring 
who, or what opinion they were of ; but after the sickness 
was over, that spirit of charity abated, and every church 
being again supplied with their own ministers, or others 20 
presented where the minister was dead, things returned to 
their old channel again. 

One mischief always introduces another ; these terrors and 
apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, 
foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of 25 
people really wicked, to encourage them to ; and this was 
running about to fortune-tellers, cunning men, and astro- 
logers, to know their fortune, or, as 'tis vulgarly expressed, 
to liave their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, 
and tlie like ; and this folly presently made the town swarm 30 
with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the 
black art, as they called it, and I know not what ; nay, to a 
thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were 
really guilty of ; and this trade grew so open and so 
generally pi;actised, that it became common to have signs 35 
and inscriptions set up at doors; — ''Here lives a fortune- 
teller" — "Here lives an astrologer" — "Here you may have 
your nativity calculated" — and the like; and Friar Bacon^s 



24 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



brazen head, which was the usual sign of these people's 
dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the 
sign of Mother Shipton or of Merlin's Head, and the like. 
With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles 
5 of the devil pleased and satisfied the people, I really know 
not ; but certain it is that innumerable attendants crowded 
about their doors every day ; and if but a grave fellow in a 
velvet jacket, a band, and a black coat, which was the habit 
those quack-conjurors generally went in, was but seen in the 

10 streets, the people would follow them in crowds, and ask 
them questions as they went along. 

These things agitated the minds of the common people 
for many months while the first apprehensions were upon 
them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet 

15 broken out ; but I must also not forget that the most 
serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another 
manner; the Government encouraged their devotion, and 
appointed public prayers, and days of fasting and humiliation, 
to make public confession of sin and implore the mercy of 

20 God, to avert the dreadful judgment which hung over their 
heads : and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the 
people of all persuasions embraced the occasion : how they 
flocked to the churches and meetings, and they were all so 
thronged, that there was often no coming near, no, not to 

25 the very doors of the largest churches : also, there were 
daily prayers appointed morning and evening at several 
churches, and days of private praying at other places ; at 
all which the people attended, I say, with an uncommon 
devotion. Several private families, also, as well of one 

80 opinion as of another, kept family fasts, to which they 
admitted their near relations only ; so that, in a word, those 
people who were really serious and religious, applied them- 
selves in a truly Christian manner to the proper work of 
repentance and humiliation as a Christian people ought 

S5 to do. 

Again, the public showed that they would bear their 
share in tliose things. The very Court, which was then gay 
and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the public 



MEMOIRS OF THH PLAGUE. 



25 



danger. All tlie plays and interludes, wliicli. after the 
manner of the French Court, had been set up. and began to 
increase among us, were forldd to act; the gaming-tables, 
public dancing-rooms, and music-houses which multiplied, 
and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut 5 
up and suppressed; and the jack-puddings, merry-andrews, 
puppet-shows, rope-dancers, and such-like doings, which had 
bewitched the poor common people, shut up their shops, 
finding, indeed, no trade ; for the minds of the people were 
agitated with other things ; and a kind of sadness and 10 
horror at these things sat upon the countenances, even of 
the common people : death was before tlieir eyes, and 
everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and 
diversions. 

But even those wholesome reflections, which, rightly 15 
managed, would have most happily led the people to fall 
upon their knees, make confession of tlieir sins, and look 
up to their merciful Saviour for pard(:>n, impluring his 
compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by 
which we might have been as a second Xineveh, had a 20 
quite contrary extreme in the common people, who, ignorant 
and stupid in theh reflections, as they Avere brutishly wicked 
and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to 
extremes of folly ; and as I have said before, that they ran 
to conjurors and witches, and all sorts of deceivers, to know 25 
what should become of them ; who fed their fears, and kept 
them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude them 
and pick their pockets : so they were as mad upon their 
running after quacks and mountebanks, and every practising 
old woman for medicmes and remedies, storing themselves 30 
vdth such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as 
they were called, that they not c-nly spent their money, but 
even poisoned themselves l»efc)rehand, for fear of the poison 
of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the plague, 
uistead of preservmg them against it. On the other hand, 35 
it is incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts of 
houses and corners of streets were plastered over with 
doctors' bills and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and 



26 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



tampering in physic, and inviting tlie people to come to 
tliem for remedies, wliicli was generally set off with such 
flourishes as these, viz. INFALLIBLE preventive pills 
against the plague. NEVER - FAILING preservatives 

5 against the infection. SOYEEEIGN cordials against the 
corruption of the air. EXACT regulations for the conduct 
of the hody in case of an infection. Anti-pestilential pills. 
INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never found 
out hefore. An UNIYERSAL remedy for the plague. The 

10 ONLY TRUE plague water. The ROYAL ANTIDOTE 
against all kinds of infection ; and such a number more, 
that I cannot reckon up, and if I could would fill a book of 
themselves to set them down. 

I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators, 

15 with which he gulled the poor people to crowd aljout him, 
but did nothing for them without money. He had, it 
seems, added to his bills, which he gave about the streets, 
this advertisement in capital letters, viz. — He gives advice 
to the poor for nothing. 

20 Abundance of poor people came to him accordingly, 
to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examnied 
tlieni of the state of their health, and of the constitution 
of their bodies, and told them many good things for them 
to do, which were of no great moment : but the issue and 

25 conclusion of all was, that he had a preparation, which, 
if they took such a quantity of every morning, he would 
pawn his life they should never have the plague — no, though 
they lived in the house with people that were infected : 
this made the people all resolve to have it : but then the 

30 price of that was so much, — I think 'twas half-a-crown : 
but. Sir, says one poor woman, I am a poor alms Avoman, 
and am kept hj the parisli, and your bills say you give the 
poor your help for nothing. Ay, good woman, says the 
doctor, so I do, as I pul)lished there ; I give my advice 

35 to the poor for nothing, but not my physic ! Alas, Sir, says 
she, that is a snare laid for the poor then; for you give 
them your advice for nothing, tliat is to say, you advise 
them gratis, to buy your physic for their money; so does 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



27 



every shopkeeper with his wares. Here the woman began 
to give him ill words, and stood at -his door all that day, 
telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, 
finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call 
her up stairs again, and give her his box of physic for 5 
nothing, which, perhaps, too, was good for nothing when 
she had it. 

It remams to mention now what public measures were 
taken by the magistrates for the general safety, and to prevent 
the spreading of the distemper when it first broke out : I 10 
shall have frequent occasion to speak of the prudence of 
the magistrates, their charity, their vigilance for the poor, 
and for preserving good order, furnishing provisions, and the 
like, when the plague was increased as it afterwards was. 
But I am now upon the order and regulations they published 15 
for the government of infected families. 

I mentioned above, shutting of houses up : and it is 
needful to say something particularly to that, for this part of 
the history of the plague is very melancholy ; but the most 
grievous story must be told. 20 

About June, the Lord Mayor of London and the Court of 
Aldermen, as I have said, began more particularly to concern 
themselves for the regulation of the city. 

The Justices of Peace for Middlesex, by direction of the 
Secretary of State, had begun to shut up houses in the 25 
parishes of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clement 
Danes, &c., and it was with good success; for in several 
streets, where the plague broke out, upon strict guarding the 
houses that were infected, and taking care to bury those that 
died immediately after they were known to be dead, the 30 
plague ceased in those streets. It was also observed, that 
the plague decreased sooner in those parishes, after they had 
been visited to the full, than it did in the parishes of 
Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, and 
others : the early care taken in that manner being a great 35 
means to the putting a check to it. 

This shutting up of houses was a method first taken, as I 
understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the 



28 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



comiiig of King James I. to tlie crown ; and tlie power of 
sliutting people up in tlieir own houses was granted by Act 
of Parliament, entitled, — ''An act for the charitable Relief 
and Ordering of Persons infected with the Plague:" on 
5 which Act of Parliament the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of 
the City of London founded the order they made at this 
time, and which took place on the 1st of July 1665. when 
the numbers infected, witlim the city, were but few, the last 
bill -for the 92 parishes being but four; and some houses 

10 haymg been shut up in the city, and some sick people being 
remoyed to the Pest-house, beyond Biuihill-Fields, in the 
way to Islington ; I say, by these means, when there died 
near one thousand a week in the whole, the number in the 
city was but 28, and the city was preseryed, more healthy in 

15 proportion, than any other places all the time of the mfection. 
This shutting up of houses was at first counted a yery 
cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so 
confined made bitter lamentations: complaints of the seyerity 
of it were also daily brought to my Lord Mayor, of houses 

20 causelessly (and some maliciously) shut up : I cannot say, 
but upon inquiry, many that complained so loudly, were 
found in a condition to be continued; and others again, 
inspection being made upon the sick person, and the sick- 
ness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on his 

25 being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released. 
It is true, that the locking up the doors of people's houses, 
and setting a watchman there night and day to preyent 
their stirring out, or any coming to them, — when, perhaps, 
the sound people in the family might liaye escaped, if they 

30 had been remoyed from the sick, — looked yery hard and 
cruel ; and many people perished in these miserable confine- 
ments, which 'tis reasonable to belieye would not haye been 
distempered if they had had liberty, though the plague was 
in the house ; at which the people were yery clamorous and 

S5 uneasy at first, and seyeral yiolences were committed, and 
injuries ofifered to the men who were set to watch the houses 
so shut up : also, seyeral people broke out by force in many 
places, as I shall observe by and by. But it was a public 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



29 



good that justified the private mischief ; and there was no 
obtaining the least mitigation, by any application to magis- 
trates, or Government, at that time ; at least, not that I 
heard of. This put the people upon all manner of strata- 
gems, in order, if possible, to get out ; and it would fill a 5 
little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such 
houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen Avho were em- 
ployed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from 
them, in Avhich frequent scuffles and some mischief happened ; 
of which by itself. 10 

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight 
a-clock, there was a great noise ; it is true, indeed, there was 
not much croAvd, because people were not very free to gather 
together, or to stay long together, when they were there ; 
nor did I stay long there : but the outcry was loud enough 15 
to prompt my curiosity and I called to one that looked out 
of a window, and asked what was the matter. 

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his 
post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be 
infected, and was shut up : he had been there all night for 20 
two nights together, as he told his story, and the day- 
watchman had been there one day, and was now come to 
relieve him : all this while no noise had been heard in the 
house, no light had been seen ; they called for nothing, sent 
him of no errands, which used to be the chief business of 25 
the watchmen ; neither had they given him any disturbance, 
as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard great 
crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, 
was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that 
time : it seems the night before, the dead cart, as it was 30 
called, had been stopped there, and a servant maid had been 
brought down to the door dead, and the buriers, or bearers, 
as they were called, put her into the cart, wapped only in a 
green rug, and carried her away. 

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when 35 
he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody 
answered a great while ; but at last one looked out, and 
gaid, with an angry quick tone^ and yet ^ kind of crying 



30 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



voice, or a voice of one that was crying, ""What d'ye want, 
that ye make such a knocking 1" He answered, "I am the 
watchman : how do you do 1 what is the matter V The 
person answered, "What is that to you*? Stop the dead 
5 cart." This, it seems, was about one a' clock : soon after, as 
the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked 
again, but nobody answered : he continued knocking, and 
then the bellman called out several times, — "Bring out your 
deacL!" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the 
10 cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and 
drove away. 

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he 
let them alone till the morning-man, or day-watchman, as 
they called him, came to relieve him, giving liim an account 

15 of the particulars ; they knocked at the door a gTeat while, 
but nobody answered ; and the}^ observed, that the window, 
or casement, at which the person had looked out who had 
answered before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs. 
Upon this, the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a 

20 long ladder, and one of them went up to the window, and 
looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead 
upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her 
but her shift : but though he called aloud, and putting in 
his long staft', knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred 

25 or answered ; neither could he hear any noise in the house. 
He came down again upon this, and acquainted his felloAv, 
who went up also ; and finding it just so, they resolved to 
acquaint either the Lord Mayor, or some other magistrate, 
of it, but did not otf'er to go in at the window : the magis- 

80 trate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, ordered 
the house to be broken open, a constable and other persons 
])eing a])pointed to be [)reseiit, that nothing might be plun- 
dered ; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was 
found in the house but that young woman, who, having l)een 

85 infected, and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by 
herself, and were every one gone, liaving found some way to 
dehuU? i]\(t watchman, and get 0[)en the door, or get out at 
some Ijuck door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



31 



knew nothing of it ; and as to those cries and shrieks which 
he heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of 
the family at the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to 
them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the family. 
The man of the house, his wife, several children and servants 5 
being all gone and fled, whether sick or sound, that I could 
never learn ; nor, indeed, did I make much inquiry after it. 

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as 
particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand ; 
for it was his business to go of any errand that the family 10 
sent him of, that is to say, for necessaries, such as food and 
physic ; to fetch physicians, if they would come, or surgeons, 
or nurses, or to order the dead-cart, and the like : but with 
this condition too, that when he went he was to lock up the 
outer door of the house, and take the key away with him. 15 
To evade this, and cheat the watchman, people got two 
or three keys made to their locks; or they found ways 
to unscrew the locks, such as were scrcAved on, and so take 
off the lock, being in the inside of the house, and while 
they sent away the watchman to the market, to the bake- 20 
house, or for one trifle or another, open the door, and go out 
as often as they pleased ; but this being found out, the 
officers afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the 
outside, and place bolts on them as they thought fit. 

At another house, as I Avas informed, in the street next 25 
within Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in, 
because the maid-servant was taken sick ; the master of the 
house had complained by his friends to the next alderman, 
and to the Lord Mayor, and had consented to have the 
maid carried to the Pest-House^ but was refused, so the door 30 
was marked with a red cross, a padlock on the outside, 
as above, and a watchman set to keep the doof according to 
public order. 

After the master of the house found there was no remedy, 
but that he, his wife, and his children, were to be locked 35 
up with this poor distempered servant, he called to the 
watchman, and told him he must go then, and fetch a nurse 
for them, to attend this poor girl, for it would be certaiii 



32 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



death to tliem all to oblige tliem to nurse her ; and told him 
plainly, that if he would not do this, the maid must perish 
either of the distemper, or be starved for want of food; 
for he was resolved none of his family should go near her : 
5 and she lay in the garret four story high, where she could 
not cry out or call to anybody for help. 

The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched a 
nurse as he was appointed, and brought her to them the 
s^^me evening ; during this interval, the master of the house 

10 took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop 
into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat, before 
or under his shop window; but the tenant, as may be 
supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or 
removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. 

15 Having made his way mto this stall, which he could not 
have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he 
was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the 
watchman ; I say, having made his way into this stall, he 
sat still till the watchman returned Avith the nurse, and all 

20 the next day also ; but the night following, having contrived 
to send the watchman of another trifling errand which, as I 
take it, was to an apothecaries for a plaister for the maid, 
for which he was to stay for the making up, or some such 
other errand that might secure his staying some time ; in 

25 that time he conveyed himself and all his family out of 
the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the 
poor wench ; that is, throw her into the cart, and take care 
of the house. 

I could give a great many such stories as these, diverting 
30 enough, which in the long course of that dismal year I met 
with, that is, heard of, and which are very certain to be 
true, or very near the truth ; that is to say, true in the 
general, for no man could at such a time learn all the 
particulars. There was, likewise, violence used with the 
35 watchmen, as was reported, in abundance of places , and I 
believe that, from the beginning of the visitation to the 
end, there was not less than eighteen or twenty of them 
killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead; which 



MEMOIPiS OF THE PLAGUE. 



3 



was supposed to be done by the people in the infected 
houses which were shut up, and where they attempted to 
come oat, and were opposed. 

As several people, I say, got out of their houses by 
stratagem, after they were shut u]), so others got out by 5 
bribing the watchmen, and giving them money to let them 
go privately out in the night. I must confess, I thought it, 
at that time, the most innocent corruption, or bril^ery, that 
any man could be guilty of ; and therefore could not but 
pity the poor men, and think it was hard when three of 10 
those watchmen were publicly whipped through the streets 
for suffering people to go out of houses slnit up. 

But notwithstanding that severity, money prevailed with 
the poor men, and many families found means to make 
sallies out, and escape that way, after they had been sliut 15 
up; but these were generally such as had some places to 
retreat to; and though there was no easy passing the roads 
any whither, after the 1st of August, yi-t there were many 
ways of retreat, and particularly, as I hinted, some got 
tents, and set them up in the fields, carrying 1jeds or straw 20 
to lie on, and provisions to eat, and so lived in them as 
hermits in a cell ; for nobody would venture to come near 
them, and several stories were told of such, some comical, 
some tragical ; some who lived like wandering pilgrims in 
the deserts, and escaped by making themselves exiles in 25 
such a manner as is scarce to be credited, and who yet 
enjoyed more liberty than was to be expected in such 
cases. 

I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman 
who, being single men, but that had stayed in the city too 30 
long to get away and, indeed not knowing where to go to 
have any retreat nor having wherewith to travel far, took a 
course for their own preservation which, though in itself, at 
first desperate yet was so natural that it may be wondered 
that no more did so, at that time. They were but of mean 35 
condition, and yet not so very poor as that they could not 
furnish themselves with some little conveniences, such as 
might serve to keep life and soul together ; and finding tho 



34 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUF. 



distemper increasing in a torril:>le manner they resolved to 
shift, as Trell as th^y coiiLI^ and to he g^jn^. 

One of them had heen a SL'L.lier in th^ lat'^ wars and, 
hef'jre that, in the Low Countries, and havin.L:' h^en Va'td to 
5 no paitieuhiT empL:'yment l:ait his *^'ms ; and hrsi'ies heing 
wc'inid-d. and not aide to w-:.rk very hard, ha^l f^jr S'jme time 
Ll-ui employed at a leaker's of seaddscuit in AVappinu". 

The hrother of tins man was a >-_iinan tv'j I'ur. -'jni'^liow 
of ijtli-r. hail he^-ni hurt uf L;-. tliat h^: l-juM iva ^'j Vj 

10 s-a hut lia'I Avork^d fijr his living at a sail makers in 
AVappiug. or thtuval "juts : and h^dng a g'.'L'd hushand had 
lai'l up some mon^y, an^l was th^ ri'dmst of the thr^e, 

The tlnrd man was a j'dnnr. iji earpfUitt:'r, hy trade, a 
handy fallow : and ht- liad ivj wealth hut his hox, or Ijasket, 

15 uf t'jols. with the help C'f Avliic-h lie eouLl at any time get 
his living, such a tim^ as this excepted, veh^rev^^r he went ; 
and hn lived near Shadwpll. 

Th^y all lived in Stepney parish wliiidn as I have said, 
F'oing tlie List tliat was inftrted, or at l^ast vi'dentlv, they 

20 stayed thtu^n till they evidently saw tli^ pL-^'Un was al^ating 
at thp Ave-t part of the tOAvn and coming tuwards the tast, 
wli^^re tli^y lived. 

Tilt st«:ay of tli-'se three men, if the r^'a^lnr ^vill he 
content to hav'e nif give it in their own p^rsuiis, without 

25 taking up^n me to tdtlmr vouch tlie particulars, or answer 
for any mistake's. I shall give as distinctly as I can, helieving 
the histL'iry will he a vt-ry g<:Hjd patttuai f^jr ;:riv pij(:ir man to 
follow, in case the like puldic dnS'dati-jn >hould happen 
here; an-l if th'-r^:' mav he ii':' such tjCra.-i'Ui — Avliiidi Go'l, 

30 of His infiniiL' m^u^cy. grant us — still tlie st'jry may have its 
uses, so many Avays, as that it Avill, I hoi-e, nevtu' l>e said 
that tlie relating has been unprMfitalde. 

I say all this previous t' > the liist'_)ry having yi-t, for the 
present, much more to say ];)ef< 're I quit my own part. 

S5 I went all the first part of the time freely about the 
streets, though not so freely as to run myself mto apparent 
danger, except when they dug tlie g^eat pit in the church- 
yard of our parish of Aldgate; a terrible pit it wa?; ami I 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



35 



could not resist my curiosity to go and see it : as near as I 
may judge, it was about forty foot in length, and about 
fifteen or sixteen foot broad, and at the time I first looked 
at it, about nine foot deep ; but it was said they dug it near 
twenty foot deep afterwards, in one part of it, till they 5 
could go no deeper for the water; for they had, it seems, 
dug several large pits before this ; for though the plague 
was long a coming to our parish, yet when it did come, 
there was no parish, in or about London, where it raged 
with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and 10 
Whitechapel. 

I say, they had dug several pits in another ground when 
the distemper begun to spread in our parish, and especially 
when the dead-carts began to go about, which was not in 
our parish till the beginning of August. Into these pits 15 
they had put perhaps hfty or sixty bodies each ; then they 
made iarger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart 
brought in a week, which by the middle to the end of 
August, came to from 200 to 400 a week ; and they could 
not well dig them larger, because of the order of the magis- 20 
trates, confining them to leave no bodies within six foot of 
the surface ; and the water coming on, at about seventeen 
or eighteen foot, they could not well, I say, put more in 
one pit; but now, at the beginning of September, the 
plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of 25 
burials in our parish increasing to more than was ever 
buried in any parish about London, of no larger extent, 
they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug, for such it was, 
rather than a pit. 

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for 30 
a month or more, when they dug it, and some blamed the 
churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling 
them they were making preparations to bury the whole 
parish, and the like ; but time made it appear the church- 
wardens knew the condition of the parish better than they 35 
did ; for the pit being finished the 4th of September, I 
think they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the 20th, 
which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it 1,114 



36 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



bodies, when they were ohliged to fill it up, the "bodies 
being then come to lie within six foot of the surface. I 
doubt not but there may ho some ancient persons aliA^e in 
the parish who can justify the fact of tliis, and are ahle to 
5 show even in what part of the churchyard the pit lay, better 
than I can; the mark of it aho was many years to he seen 
in the churchyard, on the surface, lying in length paralkd 
with the passage which gi^cs I'y the wi-st Avail of the church- 
yard, out of Houndsditch, and turns east again into "White- 

10 chapel, commg out near the Three Xuns Inn. 

It was aidant the 10th of Scptcndjcr that my curiosity 
led, or rather drove, me to go and see this pit again, Avlien 
there had been near dOO people buried in it ; and I Avas 
not content to see it in the daytime, as I had done lxdV>re, 

15 for then there AA'ould haA'e been nothing to haA'c been seen 
but the loose earth ; for all the l^odies tliat AA^ere throAvn in 
were mrniediately coA'ered Avith earth, l^y those they call 
the buriers, AAdiich at other times Avere called bearers ; but I 
resoh'cd to go in the night and see some of them throAAui in. 

20 There was a strict <:irder to prcA'ent people coming to 
those pits, and that AA'as only to preA'ent infection ; lait, 
after some time, that order Avas more necessary, for people 
that AA'cre infected, and near their end, and delirious also, 
woidd run to those pits, AA'rapped in blaidvets or rugs, and 

25 throw themselATS in, and, as they i?aid, bury themselA'cs : I 
cannot say that the officers sutfered any Avillingly to lie 
there : but I haA'e heard, that in a great pit in Fhisbury, in 
the parish of Cripplegate, it lying open then to the fields, for 
it was not then AA\alled about, some came and thrcAA* themseh'es 

30 in, and expired there before they tl^eAA' any earth upon 
them ; and that Avhen they came to bury others, and found 
them there, they were quite dead, tliough not cold. 

This may serve a little to deserilje the dreadful condition 
of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is 

35 able to give a true idea of it to those Avho did not see it, 
other than this ; that it Avas indeed very, very, very dreadful, 
and such as no tongue can express. 

I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted 



I^rEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



37 



with the sexton who attended, who, though he did not refuse 
me at all, yet earnestly persund^Ll me not to g^'j : tilling me 
very seriously, for he wo.s a. ^:^:>0'1, I'^ligious. and s^^nsilde man, 
that it was indeed their business and duty to venture, and 
to run all hazards, anil that in it they might he>pe to !>? 5 
preserved ; but that I had no apparent call to it, Vait my 
own ciiri'jsity, wliirh. he said, he believed I would not 
pretend was sutiioient to justify my running tho.t hazard. I 
told him I had been presserl in mv mind to g'j, and that 
perhaps it might be an instru-jtiug sight, that might not be 10 
without its uses, "Xay,"'' says th^e good man, *'if yon will 
venture upon that score, "name of God go in: for, depend 
upon it, 'twill be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that 
ever you heard in your hfe. 'T is a spt-aking sight."" sovs 
he, and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us .ill 15 
to repentance " and Avith that he opened the door, and 
said, "Go, if you will.'" 

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I 
stood wavering for a gOL-l Avhile : but just at that interval I 
saw two links come over iiom xli^ eivl of the ]\Iinories, and 20 
heard the bellman, and then appear^-d a dead cart, as they 
called it, coming over the streets : so I could no longer 
resist my desire of s^jluul: it, and vrent in : there was 
nobody, as I could I'^^t^'Av^ at lir-t. in the churchyard, or 
going into it, but the buri'-rs, and the fellow that drove the 25 
cart, or rather led the horse and cart : but when tliny came 
up to the pit. they saw a man go to and again, mufned up in 
a brown cLoak. and making m<jti<:'ns with his hands, under 
his cloak, as if he was in a great agony ; and the buriers 
immediately gathered abc'Ut him, supposing he was one of 30 
those poor dehrious, or desperate creatures, that used to 
pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves : he said nothing 
as he walkc'l about, but twij or three times groaned very 
deeply and luud. and sighed as he would break his heart. 

Wlien the buri^rs cume up to him, they si>:'n found he 35 
was neither a per-cai infected and desperate, as I have 
observed alnjve, or a person dist^^m]^'Hre^l in mind, but one 
oppressed Avith a drt^LiLlful wt-ight grief indeed, having 



38 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



his wife and several of his children all in the cart, that was 
just come in with him; and followed in an agony and 
excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to 
see, hut with a kind of masculine grief that could not give 
5 itself vent by tears : and calmly desiring the huriers to let 
him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and 
go away, so they left importuning him : but no sooner was 
the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit 
promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least 

10 expected they would have been decently laid in, though, 
indeed, he was afterwards convinced that was impracticable ; 
I say, no sooner did he see the sight, than he cried out 
aloud, unalile to contain himself. I could not hear what he 
said, but he went backwards two or three steps, and fell 

15 down in a swoon : the buriers ran to him, and took him up, 
and in a little while he came to himself, and they led him 
away to the Pye-tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, 
where it seems the man was known, and where they took 
care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went 

20 away, but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately 
with throwing in earth, that though there was light enough, 
for there were lanterns and candles in them, placed all night 
round the sides of the pit, upon the heaps of earth, seven 
or eight, or perhaps more, yet nothing could be seen. 

25 This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost 
as much as the rest; but the other was awful and full of 
terror. The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies ; 
some were Avrapped up in linen sheets, some in rugs, some 
little other than naked, or so loose, that what covering they 

00 had, fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and 
they fell quite naked among the rest but the matter was 
not much to them, or the indecency much to any one else, 
seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together 
into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it . for 

35 here was no difference made, but poor and rich went 
together ; there was no other way of burials, neither was it 
possible there should, for coffins were not to be had for the 
prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this. 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



39 



It was reported by way of scandal upon the bnriers, that 
if any corpse was delivered to them decently wound up, as 
we called it then, in a winding sheet tied over the head and 
feet, which some did, and which was generally of good 
linen ; I say, it was reported, that the huiiers were so 5 
^vicked as to strip them in the cart, and carry them quite 
naked to the gTOund : but as I cannot easily credit any- 
• thing so vile among Christians, and at a time so filled 
with terrors as that was, I can only relate it, and leave it 
undetermined. 10 

Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviour 
and practices of nurses who tended the sick, and of their 
liastening on the fate of those they tended in their sickness : 
but I shall say more of this in its place. 

I was indeed shocked with this sight ; it almost over- 15 
whelmed me, and I went away with my heart most afflicted 
and full of afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe : 
just at my going out of the church, and turning up the 
street towards my own house, I saw another cart with links, 
and a bellman gating before, coming out of Harrow-alley, in 20 
the Butcher-row, on the other side of the way, and being, 
as I perceived, very full of dead bodies, it went directly 
over the street also toward the church. I stood awhile, but 
I had no stomach to go back agam to see the same dismal 
scene over again ; so I went directly home, where I could 25 
not but consider with thankfulness tlie risk I had run, 
belie vmg I had gotten no injury- as, indeed, I had not. 

Here the poor unhappy gentleman's grief came into my 
head again, and indeed I could not but shed tears in the 
reflection upon it, perhaps more than he did himself ; but 30 
his case lay so heavy upon my mmd, that I cuuld not 
prevail with myself, but that I must go out again into the 
street, and go to the Pye-tavern, resolving to inc[uire what 
became of him. 

It was by this time one o'clock in the morning, and yet 35 
the poor gentleman was there : the truth was, the people of 
the house, knowing him, had entertained him, and kept him 
there all the night, nothwithstanding the danger of being 



40 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



infected by liim, thoiigli it appeared the man was perfectly 
sound himself. 

It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern : the 
people were civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks 
5 enough, and had till this time kept their house open, and 
their trade going on, though not so very publicly as formerly ; 
but there was a dreadful set of fellows that used their 
house, and who in the middle of all this horror, met there 
every night, behaved with all the revelling and roaring 

10 extravagances, as is usual for such people to do at other 
times, and indeed, to such an offensive degree, that the very 
master and mistress of the house grew first ashamed, and 
then terrified at them. 

They sat generally in a room next the street; and as 

15 they always kept late hours, so when the dead-cart came 
across the street end to go into Hound sditch, which was in 
view of the tavern windows, they would frequently open 
the windows as soon as they heard the bell, and look out at 
them ; and as they might often hear sad lamentations of 

20 people in the streets, or at their windows as the carts went 
along, they would make their impudeiit mocks and jeers at 
them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon 
God to have mercy upon them, as many would do at those 
times in their ordinary passing along the streets. 

25 These gentlemen being something disturbed wdth the 
clutter of bringing the jDOor gentleman into the house, as 
above, were first angry, and very high with the master of 
the house, for suffering such a fellow, as fhey called him, to 
be brouglit out of the grave into theii house ; but being 

30 answered that the man was a neighbour, and that he was 
sound, but overwhelmed with the calamity of his family and 
the lik^ they turned their anger into ridiculing the man, 
and his sorrow for his wife and children ; taunted liim with 
want of courage to leap into the great pit, and go to heaven, 

35 as tliey jeering expressed it, along witli them, adding 
some v(ii'y profane, and even blasphemous expressions. 

They were at this vile work when I came back to the 
Louse, and as far as I could see, though the man sat still, 



MEMOrPvS OF THE PLAGrE. 



41 



mute and disconsolate, and their affronts could not divert 
his sorrow, yet he was both grieved and offended at their 
discourse; npon this I gentlv reproved them, being well 
enongh acquainted with their characters, and not unknown 
in person to two of them. 5 

They immerliately fell upon me with ill langoiage and 
oaths; asked me Y^Tiat I did out of my grave, at snch* a 
time when so many honester men were carried into the 
churchyard? and AVhy I was not at home, saying my 
prayers, against the dead-cart came for me 1 and the like. 10 

I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, 
though not at all discomposed at their treatment of me ; 
however, I kept my temper. I toLl them, that though I 
rlefied them, or any man in the worLi, to tax me with any 
lishonesty, yet I acknowlerlged that in this terrible judg- 15 
ment of God, many better than I was swept away, and 
carried to their grave ; but to answer their question directly, 
the case was, that I was mercifully preserved by that great 
CIcmI, whose name they ha<l l>lasphemed and taken in vain, 
by cursing and swearing in a dreadfid manner ; and that I 20 
l>elieved I was preserved in particular, am«:>ng other ends of 
His goodness, that I might reprove them for their audacious 
Im jldness, in l>ehaving in snch a manner, and in such an 
awful time as this was, especially for their jeering and 
mr»cking at an honest gentleman, and a neighbour, for some 25 
of them knew him, who they saw was overwhelmed with 
sorrow, for the breaches which it had pleased God to make 
upon his family. 

I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish abc»minable 
raillery, which was the return they made to that talk of 30 
mine, being provoked, it seeuis, that I was not at all afraid 
to be free with them; nor, if I could remember, would I 
fill my account with any of the words, the horrid oaths, 
curses, and vile expressions, such as, at that time of the 
'lay, even the worst and ordinariest people in the street 35 
V lid not nse; (for, except such hardened creatures 
as these, the most wicked wretches that could he found 
Lad, at that time, some terror upon their minds of the 



42 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



hand of that power which could thus in a moment 
destroy them). 

But that which was the worst in all their devilish 
language was, that they were not afraid to blaspheme God, 

5 and talk atheistically ; making a jest at my calling the 
plague the hand of God, mocking, and even laughing at the 
word judgment, as if the providence of God had no concern 
in the inflicting such a desolating stroke; and that the 
people calling upon God, as they saw the carts carrying 

10 away the dead bodies, was all enthusiastic, absurd, and 
impertinent. 

I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, ^but 
which I found was so far from putting a check to their 
horrid way of speaking, that it made them rail the more ; 

15 so that I confess it filled me with horror and a kind of rage, 
and I came away, as I told them, lest the hand of that judg- 
ment which had visited the whole city should glorify His 
vengeance upon them, and all that were near them. 

Tiiey received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and 

20 made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to 
do at mo, giving me all the opprobrious insolent scofis that 
they could think of, for preaching to them, as they called 
it ; which indeed grieved me, rather than angered me ; and 
I went away, blessing God, however, in my mind^ that I 

25 had not spared them, tliough they had insulted me so much. 
They continued this wretched course three or four days 
after this, continually mocking and jeering at all that 
showed themselves religious, or serious, or that were any 
way touched with the sense of the terrible judgment of 

30 God upon us ; and I was informed they shouted in the 
same manner at the good people who, notwithstanding the 
contagion, met at the church, fasted, and prayed to God to 
remove His hand from them. 

I say, they continued this dreadful course three or four 

35 days, I think it was no more, when one of them, particularly 
he who asked the poor gentleman What he did out of his 
grave*? was struck from Heaven with the plague, and died 
in a most deplorable manner ; and, in a word, they were 



MEMOmS OF THE PLAGUE. 



43 



every one of them carried into the great pit, which I have 
mentioned above, before it was quite filled up, which was 
not above a fortnight or thereabout. 

I must here take further notice that nothing was more 
fatal, to the inhabitants of this city, than the supine 5 
negligence of the people themselves, who, during the long 
notice, or warning they had of the visitation, yet made no 
provision for it, by laying in store of provisions, or of other 
necessaries, by which they might have lived retired, and 
within their own houses, as I have observed others did, and 10 
who were in a great measure preserved by that caution ; 
nor were they, after they were a little hardened to it, so shy 
of conversing with one another, when actually infected, as 
they were at first ; no, though they knew it. 

I acknowledge I was one of those thoughtless ones that 15 
had made so little provision, that my servants were obliged 
to go out of doors to buy every trifle by penny and half- 
penny, just as before it begun, even till my experience 
showing me the folly, I began to be wiser so late, that I had 
scarce to store myself sufficient for our common subsistence 20 
for a month. 

I had in family only an ancient woman, that managed 
the house, a maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; 
and the plague beginning to increase about us, I had many 
sad thoughts about what course I should take, and how 25 
I should act. The many dismal objects which happened 
everywhere as I went about the streets, had filled my mind 
with a great deal of horror, for fear of the distemper itself, 
which was, indeed, very horrible in itself, and in some 
more than in others. The swellings, which were generally 30 
in the neck, or groin, when they grew hard and would not 
break, grew so painful that it was ec[ual to the most 
exquisite torture , and some, not able to bear the torment, 
threw themselves out at windows, or shot themselves, or 
otherwise made themselves away ; and I saw several dismal 35 
objects of that kind. Others, unable to contain themselves, 
j vented their pain by incessant roarings ; and such loud and 
I lamentable cries were to be heard as we walked along the 



44 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



streets, that would pierce the very heart to think of, 
especially when it was to be considered that the same 
dreadful scourge might be expected every moment to seize 
upon our selves. 
5 I cannot say but that now I began to faint in my 
resolutions : my heart failed me very much, and sorely 
I repented of my rashness : when I had been out, and met 
with such terrible things as these I have talked of : I say, I 
repented my rashness in venturing to abide in town : I 

10 wished often that I had not taken upon me to stay, but had 
gone away with my brother and his family. 

Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home 
sometimes, and resolve to go out no more ; and perhaps 
I would keep those resolutions for three or four days, which 

15 time I spent in the most serious thankfulness for my preser- 
vation, and the preservation of my family, and the constant 
confession of my sins, giving myself up to God every day, 
and applying to Him, with fasting, humiliation, and medi- 
tation. Such intervals as I had, I employed in reading 

20 books, and in writing down my memorandums of what 
occurred to me every day, and out of which, afterwards, 
I formed most of tliis work, as it relates to my observations 
without doors ; what I wrote of my private meditations 
I reserve for private use, and desire it may not be made 

25 public on any account whatever. 

I also wrote other meditations upon divine sul^jects, such 
as occurred to me at that time, and were profitable to myself, 
but not fit for any other view ; and therefore I say no more 
of tliat. 

30 I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was 
Heath, who I frequently visited during this dismal time, and 
to wliose advice I was very much obliged for many things 
which lie directed me to take, by way of preventing the 
infection wlien I went out, as he found I frequently did, and 

35 to hold in my mouth wlien I was in the streets ; he also came 
v(iry often to see me ; and as he was a good Christian, as 
w<dl as a good pliysician, his agreeable conversation was a 
very grc.^at support to me in tlie worst of tliis terrible time. 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



45 



It was now the beginning of August, and the plague grew 
very violent and terrible in the place where I lived : and Dr. 
Heath coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so 
often out in the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock 
myself up and my family, and not to suffer any of us to go 5 
out of doors; to keep all our windows fast, shutters and 
curtains close, and never to open them ; but first, to make a 
very strong smoke in the room, where the window or door 
was to be opened, with rosin and pitch, brimstone, or gun- 
powder, and the like ; and we did this for some time : but 10 
as I had not lain in a store of provision for such a retreat, it 
was impossible that we could keep within doors entirely. 
However, I attempted, though it was so very late, to do 
something towards it ; and first, as I had convenience both 
for brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of 15 
meal, and for several weeks, having an oven, we baked all 
our own bread : also I bought malt, and brewed as much beer 
as all the casks I had would hold, and which seemed enough 
to serve my house for five or six weeks : also I laid in a 
quantity of salt butter and Cheshire cheese ; but I had no 20 
flesh-meat, and the plague raged so violently among the 
butchers, and slaughter-houses, on the other side of our street, 
where they are known to dwell in great numbers, that it was 
not advisable, so much as to go over the street among them. 

And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going 25 
out of our houses to buy provisions, was in a great measure 
the ruin of the whole city, for the people catched the dis- 
temper on those occasions, one of another ; and even the 
provisions themselves were often tainted, at least I have 
great reason to believe so ; and therefore I cannot say with 30 
satisfaction, what I know is repeated with great assurance, 
that the market people, and such as brought provisions to 
town, were never infected. I am certain the butchers of 
Whitechapel, where the greatest part of the flesh-meat was 
killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at last to such a 35 
degree, that few of their shops were kept open; and those 
that remained of them killed their meat at Mile-End, and 
that way, and brought it to market upon horses. 



46 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and 
there was a necessity that they must go to market to buy, 
and others to send servants or their children ; and as this 
was a necessity which renewed itself daily, it brought 
6 abundance of unsound people to the markets, and a great 
many that went thither sound, brought death home with 
them. 

It is true people used all possible precaution ; when any 
one bought a joint of meat in the market, they would not 

10 take it of the butcher's hand, but take it off the hooks 
themselves. On the other hand, the butcher would not 
touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of vinegar, 
which he kept for that purpose. The buyer carried always 
small money to make up any odd sum, that they might take 

15 no change. They carried bottles for scents and perfumes in 
their hands, and all the means that could be used were used : 
but then the poor could not do even these things, and they 
went at all hazards. 

Iimumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this 

20 very account : sometimes a man or woman dropt down dead 
in the very markets ; for many people that had the plague 
upon them knew nothing of it till the inward gangrene had 
affected their vitals, and they died in a few moments : this 
caused that many died frequently in that manner in the 

25 streets suddenly, without any warning ; others perhaps had 
time to go to the next bulk or stall ; or to any door porch, 
and just sit down and die, as I have said before. 

These objects were so frequent in the streets, that when 
the plague came to be very raging on one side, there was 

30 scarce any passing by the streets, but that several dead 
bodies would be lying here and there upon the ground : on 
the other hand it is observable, that though at first the 
people would stop as they went along, and call to the 
neigh])Ours to come out on such an occasion ; yet, afterward, 

35 no notice was taken of them ; but that, if at any time we 
found a corpse lying, (we would) go cross the way, and not 
come near it ; or if in a narrow lane or passage, go back 
again and seek some other way to go on the business TVa 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



47 



were upon; and in those cases the corpse was always left 
till the officers had notice to come and take them away ; or, 
till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart would 
take them up and carry them away. ]^or did those un- 
daunted creatures who performed these offices, fail to search 5 
their pockets, and sometimes strip off the clothes, if they 
were well drest, as sometimes they were, and carry off what 
they could get. 

But to return to the markets : the butchers took that care, 
that if any person died in the market, they had the officers 10 
ahvays at hand to take them up upon hand-barrows, and 
carry them to the next churchyard ; and this was so frequent 
that such were not entered in the weekly bill, found dead in 
the streets and fields, as is the case now ; but they went into 
the general articles of the great distemper. 15 

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a 
degree, that even the markets were but very thinly fur- 
nished with provisions, or frequented with buyers, compared 
to what they were before ; and the Lord IMayor caused the 
country people who brought provisions, to be stopped in the 20 
streets leading into the town, and to sit down there with 
their goods, where they sold what they brought, and went 
immediately away ; and this encouraged the country people 
greatly to do so, for they sold their provisions at the very 
entrances into the town, and even in the fields ; as particu- 25 
larly in the fields beyond AYhitechapel, in Spittle-fields. 
Note, Those streets now called Spittle-fields, were then 
indeed open fields ; also in St. George's-fields in SoutliAvark, 
in Bunhill-fields, and in a great field called Wood's-close 
near Islington : thither the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and 30 
magistrates, sent their officers and servants to buy for their 
families, themselves keeping within doors as much as 
possible; and the like did many other people; and after 
this method was taken, the country people came with great 
cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very 35 
seldom got any harm : which, I suppose, added also to that 
report of their being miraculously preserved. 

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid 



48 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE, 



in a store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my 
friend and pliysician's advice, and locked myself up, and 
my family, and resolved to suffer the hardship of living a 
few months without flesh-meat rather than to purchase it at 
5 the hazard of our lives. 

But though I confined my family, I could not prevail 
upon my unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely my- 
self; and though I generally came frighted and terrified 
home, yet I could not restrain, only that, indeed, I did not 

10 do it so frequently as at first. 

I had some little obligations, indeed, upon me, to go to 
my brother's house, which was in Coleman's Street parish, 
and which he had left to my care, and I went at first every 
day, but afterwards only once or twice a week. 

15 In these walks I had many di.snial scenes before my eyes, 
as particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible 
shrieks and shriekings of women, wlio, in their agonies, 
would throw open their chamber windows, and cry out in a 
dismal surprising manner; it is impossible to describe the 

20 variety of postures in which the passions of the poor people 
would express themselves. 

Passing through Token-house Yard in Lothbury, of a 
sudden, a casement violently opened just over my head, and 
a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, 

25 " Oh ! death, death, death ! " in a most inimitable tone, and 
which struck me with horror and a chillness in my very 
blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, 
neither did any other window open ; for people had no 
curiosity now in any case; nor could anybody help one 

30 another ; so I went on to pass into Bell-alley. 

Just in Bell-alley, on the right hand of the passage, there 
was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not so 
directed out at the window ; but the whole family was in a 
terrible fright, and I could hear women and children run 

35 screaming about the rooms like distracted, when a garret 
window opened, and somebody from a window on the other 
side of the alley called and asked, ''What is the matter 
upon which, from the first window it was answered, "0 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



49 



Lord, my old master has hanged himself ! " The other 
asked agam, **Is he quite dead*?" and the first answered, 
Ay, ay, quite dead: quite dead and cold!" This person 
was a merchant, and a deputy alderman, and very rich. I 
care not to mention the name, though I knew his name too, 5 
but that would be an hardship to the family, which is now 
flourishing again. 

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us 
of nurses and watchmen, Avho looked after the dying people, 
that is to say, hired nurses, wdio attended infected people, 10 
using them barlxarously, starving them, smothering them, or 
by other wicked means hastening their end, that is to say 
murdering of them : and Avatchmen being set to guard 
houses that Avere shut up, Avhen there has been but one 
person left, and perhaps that one lying sick, that they have 15 
broke in and murdered that body and immediately thrown 
them out into the dead-cart ! and so they have gone scarce 
cold to the grave. 

I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, 
and I think Wo were sent to prison for it, but died before 20 
they could be tried ; and I have heard that three others, 
at several times, were excused for murders of that kind; 
but I must say I believe nothing of its being so common a 
crime as some have since been pleased to say, nor did it 
seem to be so rational, where the people Avere brought so 25 
low as not to be able to help themselves, for such seldom 
recovered, and there Avas no temptation to commit a murder, 
at least, none equal to the fact Avhere they were sure persons 
would die in so short a time, and could not liA^e. 

That there were a great many robberies and wicked 30 
practices committed even in this dreadful time I do not 
deny; the poAver of avarice was so strong in some, that 
they would run any hazard to steal and to plunder; and 
particularly in houses where all the families or inhabitants 
have been dead and carried out, they would break in at all 35 
hazards, and, without regard to the danger of infection, take 
even the clothes off the dead bodies, and the bed-clothea 
froni others where they lay dead. 



50 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



This, I suppose, must be tlie case of a family in Hounds- 
ditch, where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family- 
being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, 
were found stark naked, one in one chamber, and one in 
5 another, lying dead on the floor ; and the clothes of the bed, 
from whence it is supposed they were rolled off by thieves, 
stolen, and carried quite away. 

I have mentioned above, that notwithstanding this dreadful 
calamity, yet numbers of thieves were abroad upon all 

10 occasions, where they had found any prey ; and that these 
were generally women. It was one morning about eleven 
o'clock, I had walked out to my brother's house, in Colman's- 
street parish, as I often did, to see that all was safe. 

My brother's house had a little court before it, and a brick 

15 Avail with a gate in it ; and, within that, several warehouses, 
where his goods of several sorts lay : it happened that in 
one of these warehouses were several packs of women's 
high-crowned hats, which came out of the country ; and 
were, as I suppose, for exportation ; whither I know not. 

20 I was surprised that when I came near my brother's door, 
which was in a place they called Swan-alley, I met three or 
four women with high-crowned hats on their heads ; and as 
I remembered afterwards, one, if not more, had some hats 
likewise in their hands ; but as I did not see them come 

25 out at my brother's door, and not knowing that my brother 
had any such goods in his warehouse, I did not offer to say 
anything to them, but went cross the way to shun meeting 
them, as was usual to do, at that time, for fear of the 
plague. But when I came nearer to the gate, I met another 

30 woman with more hats come out of the gate. What 
business. Mistress,'' said I, "have you had there"?" There 
are more people there," said she; "I have had no more 
business there than they." I was hasty to get to the gate 
then, and said no more to her, by which means she got 

S5 away. But just as I came to the gate, I saw two more 
coming cross the yard to come out with hats also on their 
heads, and under their arms ; at which I threw the gate too 
behind me, which having a spring lock, fastenecl itself; 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



51 



and turning to the women — "Forsooth," said I, 'Svhat are 
ye doing herel" and seized upon the hats and took them 
from them. One of them, Avho, I confess, did not look like 
a thief, — " Indeed," says she, " we are wrong ; but we were 
told they were goods that had no owner ; be pleased to take 5 
them again, and, look yonder, there are more such customers 
as we;" she cried, and looked pitifully; so I took the hats 
from her, and opened the gate, and bade them be gone, 
for I pitied the women indeed ; but when I looked towards 
the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, 10 
all women, fitting themselves with liats, as unconcerned and 
quiet as if they had been in a hatter's shop, buying for 
their money. 

I Avas surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, 
but at the circumstances I was in ; being noAV to thrust 15 
myself in among so many peo[)le, who, for some weeks, had 
been so shy of myself, that if I met anybody in the street, I 
would cross the way from them. 

They were equally surprised, though on another account : 
they all told me they were neighbours, that they had heard 20 
any one might take them, that they Avere nobody's goods, 
and the like. I talked big to them at first ; Avent back to 
the gate, and took out the key ; so that they Avere all my 
prisoners ; threatened to lock them all into the AA^arehouse, 
and go and fetch my Lord Mayor's officers for them. 25 

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, 
and the Avaiehouse door open ; and that it had no doubt 
been broken open by some Avho expected to find goods of 
greater value, Avhich indeed Avas reasonable to believe, 
because the lock Avas broke, and a padlock that hung to 30 
the door on the outside, also loose; and not abundance of 
the hats carried aAvay. 

At length, I considered that this was not a time to be 
cruel and rigorous ; and besides that it Avould necessarily 
oblige me to go much about, to have several people come to 35 
me, and I go to several, whose circumstances of health I 
knew nothing of; and that even, at this time, the plague 
was so high as that there died 4000 a-Aveek; so that in 



52 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



showing my resentment, or even in seeking justice for my 
brother's goods, I might lose my own life; so I contented 
myself with taking the names and places where some of 
them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighbour- 
5 hood ; and threatening that my brother should call them to 
an account for it when he returned to his hal)itation. 

Then I talked a little upon another foot with them, and 
asked them how they could do such things as these in a 
time of such general calamity, and, as it were, in the face of 

10 God's most dreadful judgments, when the plague was at their 
very doors, and it may be in their very houses ; and they 
did not know but that the dead-cart might stop at their 
doors in a few hours, to carry them to their graves. 

I could not perceive that my discourse made much im- 

15 pression upon them all that while, till it happened that 
there came two men of the neighbourhood hearing of the 
disturbance, and knowing my brother, for they had been 
both dependants upon his family, and they came to my assist- 
ance; these being, as I said, neighbours, presently knew 

20 three of the women, and told me who they were, and where 
they lived ; and it seems they had given me a true account 
of themselves before. 

This brings these two men to a farther remembrance : the 
name of one was John Hayward, who was at that time 

25 under-sexton of the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman-street ; 
by under-sexton was understood, at that time, grave-digger 
and bearer of the dead. This man carried or assisted to 
carry all the dead to their graves, which were buried in that 
large parish, and who were carried in form ; and after that 

30 form of burying was stopped, went with the dead-cart and 
the bell, to fetch the dead bodies from the houses where 
they lay, and fetched many of them out of tlie chambers 
and houses ; for the parish was, and is still, remarkable, 
particularly above all the parishes in London, for a great 

35 number of alleys and thoroughfares very long, into which no 
carts could come, and where they were ol)liged to go and 
f(itch the bodies a very long way ; which alleys now remain 
to witness it; sucli as Wliite's-alley, Cross-key-court, Swan- 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



53 



alley, Bell-alley, White-liorse-alley, and many more; here 
they went with a kind of hand-barrow, and laid the dead 
bodies on it, and carried them out to the carts ; which Avork 
he performed, and never had the distemper at all, but lived 
above twenty years after it, and was sexton of the parish to 5 
the time of his death. His wife, at the same time, was a 
nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the 
parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish- 
officers ; yet she never was infected neither. 

He never used any preservative against the infection, 10 
other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking 
tobacco ; this I also had from his own mouth ; and his wife's 
remedy was washing her head in vinegar, and sprinkling 
her head-cloths so with vinegar, as to keep them always 
moist ; and if the smell of any of those she waited on was 15 
more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed vinegar up her 
nose, and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-cloths, and held 
a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth. 

It must be confessed, that though the plague was chiefly 
among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and 20 
fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort 
of brutal courage : I must call it so, for it was founded 
neither on religion nor prudence ; scarce did they use any 
caution, but run into any business which they could get 
employment in, though it was the most hazardous ; such was 25 
that of tendmg the sick, watching houses shut up, carrying 
infected persons to the pest-house, and, which was still 
worse, carrying the dead away to their graves. 

It was under this John Hayward's care, and w^ithin his 
bounds, that the story of the piper, w^ith which people have 30 
made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me 
that it was true. It is said, that it was a blind piper ; but, 
as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, 
weak, poor man, and usually walked his rounds about ten a 
clock at night, and went piping along from door to door, and 35 
the people usually took him in at public-houses where they 
knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and 
sometimes farthings ; and he in return, would pipe and sing, 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



and talk simply, which diverted the people ; and thus he 
lived ; it was but a very bad time for this diversion, while 
things were as I have told ; yet the poor fellow went about 
as usual, but was almost starved ; and when anybody asked 
5 how he did, he would answer, — the dead-cart had not taken 
him yet, but that they had promised to call for him next 
week. 

It happened one night, that this poor fellow, whether 
somebody had given him too much drink or no — John 

10 Hay ward said he had not drink in his house ; but that they 
had given him a little more victuals than ordinary at a 
public-house in Coleman-street : and the poor fellow having 
not usually had a bellyful, or perhaps, not a good while, was 
laid all along on the top of a bulk or stall, and fast asleep 

15 at a door, in the street near London- wall towards Cripple- 
gate; and that upon the same bulk or stall, the people of 
some house in the alley of which the house was a corner, 
hearing a bell, which they always rung before the cart came, 
had laid a body really dead of the plague just by him, 

20 thinking too that this poor fellow had been a dead body, as 
the other was, and laid there by some of the neighbours. 

Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the 
cart came along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, 
they took them up with the instrument they used, and 

25 threw them into the cart ; and all this while the piper 
slept soundly. 

From hence they passed along, and took in other dead 
bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost 
buried him alive in the cart ; yet all this while he slept 

30 soundly. At length the cart came to the place where the 
bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do 
remember, was at Mount-mill; and as the cart usually 
stopped some time before they were ready to shoot out the 
melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart stopped, 

35 tlie fellow awaked, and struggled a little to get his head out 
from among the dead bodies, when raising himself up in 
tlic cart, he called out, "Hey ! where am If This frighted 
the fellow that attended about the work ; but, after some 



MEMOIRS OE THE PLAGUE, 



55 



pause, Joliii Hay ward, recovering himself, said, ^' Lord bless 
us; there's somebody in the cart not quite dead;'' so 
another called to him and said, " Who are you The fellow 
answered, ''I am the poor piper — where am II" "Where 
are you f says Hay ward; "why, you are in the dead-cart, 5 
and we are a-going to bury you." "But I a'nt dead though, 
am IV' says the piper; ^vhich made them laugh a little, 
though, as John said, they were heartily frighted at first; 
so they helped the poor fellow do^vn, and he went about his 
business. 10 

1 know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart, and 
frighted the bearers and others, so that they ran a^vay; 
but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say any- 
thing of his piping at all ; but that he was a poor piper, and 
that he was carried away as above, I am fully satisfied of the 15 
truth of. 

I cannot omit taking notice what a desolate place the city 
was at that time. The gTeat street I lived in, which is 
known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of London, 
I mean of the suburbs as well as the liberties, all the side 20 
where the butchers lived, especially without the bars, was 
more like a green field than a paved street, and the people, 
generally, were in the middle with the horses and carts. It 
is true that the farthest end, tow^ards Whitechapel church, 
was not all paved, but even the part that was paved was full 25 
of grass also , but this need not seem strange since the great 
streets, within the city, such as Leaden-hall street, Bishop- 
gate-street, Cornhill, and even the Exchange itself, had grass 
growing in them, in several places. Neither cart or coach 
were seen in the streets from morning to evening, except 30 
some country carts to bring roots and beans, or peas, hay 
and straw, to the market, and those but very few, compared 
to what was usual. As for coaches they were scarce used, 
but to carry sick people to the Pest-House, and to other 
hospitals ; and some few to carry physicians to such places 35 
as they thought fit to venture to visit; for really coaches 
were dangerous things, and people did not care to venture 
into them, because they did not know who might have been 



56 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



carried in them last ; and sick infected people were, as I have 
said, ordinarily carried in them to the Pest-Honses, and 
sometimes people expired in them as they went along. 
As the desolation was greater, during those terrible times, 
6 so the amazement of the people increased ; and a thousand 
unaccountable things they would do in the violence of their 
fright, as others did the same in the agonies of their dis- 
temper, and this part was very affecting. Some went roaring 
and crying, and wringing their hands along the street ; some 

10 would go praying, and lifting up their hands to heaven, call- 
ing upon God for mercy. I cannot say, indeel, whether 
this was not in their distraction ; but be it so, it was still an 
indication of a more serious mind when they had the use of 
their senses, and was much better, even as it was, than the 

15 frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and especially 
in the evenings, were heard in some streets. I suppose the 
world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast? 
He, though not infected at all but in his head, went about 
denouncing of judgment upon the city, in a frightful manner; 

20 sometimes quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal 
on his head. What he said, or pretended, indeed, I could 
not learn. 

It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty 
and sound in health, but very impatient of being pent up 

25 within doors without air, as I had been, for fourteen days, or 
thereabouts ; and I could not restrain myself, but I would go 
to carry a letter for my In^other to the post-house ; then it 
was, indeed, that I observed a profound silence in the streets. 
When I came to the post-house, as I went to put in my 

30 letter, I saw a man stand in one corner of the yard, and 
talking to another at a window, and a third had opened a 
door belonging to the office. In the middle of the yard lay 
a small leatlier purse, with two keys hanging at it, and 
money in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked 

35 how long it had lain there ; the man at the window said it 
had lain almost an hour, but that they had not meddled 
with it, because they did not know but the person who 
dropped it might come l)ack to look for it. I had no such 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



57 



need of money, nor was tlie sum so big that I had any 
inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money at the 
hazard it might be attended with ; so I seemed to go away, 
when the man who had opened the door said he would take 
it up ', but so that if the right owner came for it, he should 5 
be sure to have it ; so he went in and fetched a pail of 
water, and set it down hard by the purse ; then went again 
and fetched some gunpowder, and cast a good deal of powder 
upon the purse, and then made a train from that which he 
had thrown loose upon the purse ; the train reached about 10 
two yards , after this, he goes in a third time, and fetches 
out a pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I 
suppose, on purpose ; and first setting fire to the train of 
powder, that singed the purse, and also smoked the air 
sufficiently ; but he was not content with that, but he then 15 
takes up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the 
tongs burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money 
out into the pail of water ; so he carried it in. The money, 
as 1 remember, was about thirteen shillings, and some 
smooth groats and brass farthings. 20 

There might, perhaps, have been several poor people, as I 
have observed above, that would have been hardy enough 
to have ventured for the sake of the money ; but you may 
easily see, by what I have observed, that the few people 
who were spared were very careful of themselves, at that 25 
time, when the distress was so exceeding great. 

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields 
towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see how things 
were managed in the river and among the ships ; and as I 
had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had 30 
been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the 
infection, to have retired into a ship ; and musing how to 
satisfy my curiosity, in that point, I turned away over the 
fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the 
stairs which are there for landing, or taking water. 35 

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, 
as they call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, 
seeing the houses all shut up ; at last I fell into some talk, 



58 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



at a distance, mth this poor man; first, I asked him how 
people did thereabouts'? ''Alas! sir," says he, "almost all 
desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in 
this part, or in that village," pointing at Poplar, ''where 
5 half of them are not dead alread}^, and the rest sick." 
Then he pointed to one house, ''There they are all dead," 
said he, "and the house stands open : noljody dares go into 
it: a poor thief," says he, "ventured in to steal something, 
but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the 

10 church-yard too, last night." Then he pointed to several 
other houses. "There," says he, "they are all dead, the 
man and his wife, and five children." "There," says he, 
"they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door:" and 
so of other houses. " Why," says I, " what do you here all 

15 alone ^" "AVliy," says he, "I am a poor desolate man; it 
has pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, 
and one of my children dead." "How do you mean, then," 
said I, "that you are not visited']" "AYhy,'^ says he, 
"that's my house," pointing to a very little low boarded 

20 house, "and there my poor wife and two children live/' 
said he, " if they may be said to live, for my wife and one 
of the children are visited, but I do not come at them." 
And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully 
down his face; and so they did down mine too, I 

25 assure you. 

"But," said I, "why do you not come at them, how can 
you abandon your own flesh and Tdood ?" 

"Oh! sir," says he, "the Lord furbid ! I do not abandon 
them ; I work for them as much as I am able ; and, blessed 

30 l>e the Lord! I keep them from want;" and with that i 
observed he lifted up his eyes to Heaven with a countenance 
tliat presently told me I had happened on a man that was 
no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his 
ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness that, in such 

25 a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family 
did not want. "Well," says 1, "honest man, that is a 
great mercy, as things go now with the poor : but how do 
you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



59 



calamity that is now upon us alll" ^'TTliy, sir," says he, 
"I am a waterman, and there is my boat," says he, "and 
the boat serves me for a house ; I work in it in the day, and 
I sleep in it in the niglit ; and what I get I lay down upon 
that stone," says he, showing me a broad stone on the other 5 
side of the street, a good way from his house, "and then," 
says he, " I halloo, and call to them till I make them hear, 
and they come and fetch it." 

"^Vell, friend," says I, "but how can you get any money 
as a waterman^ does anybody go by water these times?" 10 
"Yes, sir," says he, "in the way I am employed, T^i^-^e 
does. Do you see there," says he, "five ships lit^ at ancliLa ]" 
pointing down the river, a good way Ijelow the toAvn : " and 
do you see," says he, " eight or ten ships lie at the chain, 
there, and at anchor y^ :ai<ler '] " pointing above the town. 15 
"All those ships have families on b'jard of their merchants 
and owners, and such like, who have locked themselves up 
and live on board, close shut in for fear of the infection ; 
and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, 
and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be 20 
obliged to come on shore ; and every night I fasten my boat 
on board one of the ship's boats, and there I sleep by my- 
self, and, blessed be God ! I am preserved hitherto." 

"Well," said I, "friend, but will they let you come on 
board after you have been on shore here, when this is such 25 
a terrible ]Aace, and so infected as it is 1 " 

"Why, as to that," said he, "I very seldom go up the 
ship side, but deliver what I bring to their hoax, or lie by 
the side, and they hoist it on board ; if I did, I think they 
are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house on 30 
shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family ; but I 
fetch provisions for them." 

"Xay," says I, "'but that may be worse, for you must 
have those provisions of somebody or other ; and smce all 
this part of the town is so infected, it is dangerous so much 35 
as to speak with anybody ; for this village," said I, "is, as 
it were, the beginning of London, though it be at some 
distance from it." 



60 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



"That is true," added lie ; •'iDut, you do not understand 
me rigiit ; I do not biiv provisions for tlieni here ; I row 
up to Greemvich and Ijiiy fn?s]i meat there, and sometimes 
I row down the river to AVLHjlwich, and buy there : then I 
5 go to single farmhouses on the Kentish side, where I am 
known, and buy fowls, and eggs and butter, and bring to 
the ships, as they direct me, sometimes one, sometimes the 
other ; I seldom come on shore here, and I come now only 
to call to my wife, and hear how my little family do, and 
10 give them a little money which I received last night." 

"Poor man!" said I, "and how much hast thou gotten 
for them 1 " 

"I have gotten four shillings," said he, "which is a great 
sum, as things go now with poor men : but they have given 
15 me a bag of bread too, and a salt fish and some flesh; so all 
helps out." 

"Well," said I, "and have you given it them yet " 
"Xo," said he, "but I have called, and my wife has 
answered that she cannot come out yet, but in half-an-h>'»ur 

20 she hopes to come, and I am waiting for her. Poor wi nnan 
says he, "she is brought sadly down; she has a swelling, 
and it is broke, and I liope slie Avill recover ; but I fear the 
child will die ; but it is the Lord ! " — here he stopt, and 
wept very much. 

25 " AYell, honest friend," said I, " thou hast a sure comf niter, 
if thou hast brouglit thyself to be resigned to the will <:if 
God; He is dealing with us all in judgment." 

" (Jh, sir," says he, "it is infinite mercy if any of us are 
spared; and who am I to repine V 

30 "Say est thou so?" said I; ''and how much less is my 
faith than thine f And here my heart smote me, suggesting 
liow much better this poor man's foundation was, on which 
he stayed in the danger, than mine ; that he had nowhere to 
fly ; that he had a family to bind him to attendance, which 

35 I had not; and mine was mere presumption, his a true 
dependence, and a courage resting on God ; and yet, that he 
used all possil)le caution for liis safety. 

I turned a little way from the man, while these thoughts 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



61 



engaged me, for, indeed, I could no more refrain from tears 
than he. 

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened 
the door and called — "Eobert! EolDcrt!" he answered, and 
bid her stay a few moments and he would come ; so he ran 5 
down the common stairs to his boat, and fetched up a sack, 
in which was the provisions he had brought from the ships ; 
and when he returned he hallooed again ; then he went to 
the great stone which he showed me, and emptied the sack, 
and laid all out, everything by themselves, and then retired ; 10 
and his wife came with a little boy to fet<']i them away ; and 
he called and said, such a captain had sent such a thing, and 
such a captain such a thing : and at the end adds, ^' God has 
sent it all: give thanks to Him.'^ When the poor woman 
had taken up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at 15 
once in, thongh the weight was not much neither ; so she 
left the biscuit, which was in a little bag, and left a little 
boy to watch it till she came again. 

"AYell, but," says I to him, '^did you leave her the four 
shillings too, which you said was your weelv's pay 20 

"Yes, yes,'' says he, "you shall hear her own it." So he 
calls again, "Eacliel! Eachel!" which it seems was her 
name, "did you take up the money 1" "Yes," said she. 
" How much was it f said he. " Four shillings and a groat," 
said she. " AYell, well," says he, "the Lord keep you all !" 25 
and so he turned to go away. 

As I could not refrain from contributing tears to this 
man's story, so neither could I refrain my charity for his 
assistance; so I called him, — "Hark thee, friend," said I, 
" come hither ; for I believe thou art in health, that I may 30 
venture thee!" so I pulled out my hand, which was in my 
pocket before; — "Here," says I, "go and call thy Eachel 
once more, and give her a little more comfort from me. God 
will never forsake a family that trusts in Him as thou dost." 
So I gave him four other shillings, and bad him go and lay 35 
them on the stone, and call his wife. 

I have not words to express the poor man's thankfulness, 
neither could he express it himself, but by tears running 



62 



MEMOIKS OB THE PLAGUE. 



down his face; he called his wife, and told her God had 
moved the heart of a stranger, upon hearing their condition, 
to give them all that money ; and a great deal more such as 
that he said to her. The woman, too, made signs of the like 
5 thankfulness, as well to Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked 
it up ; and I parted with no money all that year that I 
thoug]]t better bestowed. 

I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached 
to Greenwich; he said it had not till about a fortnight 

10 before, but that then he feared it had ; but that it was only 
at that end of the town which lay south towards Deptford- 
bridge ; that he went only to a butcher's shop and a grocer's, 
where he generally bought such things as they sent him for ; 
but was very careful. 

15 I asked him then, how it came to pass that those people 
who had so shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in 
sufficient stores of all things necessary He said some of 
them had, but on the other hand, some did not come on 
board till they were frighted into it, and till it was too 

20 dangerous for them to go to the proper people to lay in 
quantities of things ; and that he waited on two ships, 
which he showed me, that had laid in little or nothing but 
biscuit-bread and ship-beer ; and that he had bought every- 
thing else almost for them. I asked him if there was any 

25 more ships that had separated themselves as those had done 1 
He told me, yes, all the way up from the point, right against 
Greenwich, to within the shore of Limehouse and EedrifF, 
all the ships that could have room rid two and two in the 
middle of the stream, and that some of them had several 

SO families on board, I asked him if the distemper had not 
reached them He said he believed it had not, except two 
or three ships, whose people had not been so watchful, to 
keep the seamen from going on shore, as others had been ; 
and he said it was a very fine sight to see how the ships lay 

S5 up the pool. 

When he said he was going over to Greenwich as soon as 
the t) ie began to come in, I asked him if he would let me 
go with him, and bring me back, for that I had a great mind 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



63 



to see how the ships were ranged, as he had told me : he 
told me, if I would assure him on the word of a Christian, 
and of an honest man, that I had not the distemper, he 
would. 1 assured him that I had not ; that it had pleased 
God to preserve me ; that I lived in Whitechapel, but was 5 
too impatient of being so long within doors, and that I had 
ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air ; but 
that none in my house had so much as been touched with it. 

Well, sir," says he, "as your charity has been moved to 
pity me and my poor family, sure you cannot have so little 10 
pity left as to put yourself into my boat if you were not 
sound in health, which would be nothing less than killing 
me, and ruining my whole family." The poor man troubled 
me so much when he spoke of his family with such a sensible 
concern, and in such an affectionate manner, that I could 15 
not satisfy myself at first to go at all. I told him I would 
lay aside my curiosity rather than make him uneasy, though 
I was sure, and very thankful for it, that I had no more dis- 
temper upon me than the freshest man in the world. Well, 
he would not have me put it off neither ; but to let me see 20 
how confident he was that I was just to him, he now im- 
portuned me to go : so when the tide came up to his boat, I 
went in, and he carried me to Greenwich. While he bought 
the things which he had in his charge to buy, I walked up 
to the top of the hill under which the town stands, and on 25 
the east side of the town, to get a prospect of the river ; but 
it was a surprising sight to see the number of ships which 
lay in rows, two and two, and some places, two or three 
such lines in the breadth of the river, and this not only up 
quite to the town, between the houses which we call 30 
Eatcliff and Redriff, which they name the Pool, but even 
doAvn the whole river, as far as the head of Long Reach, 
which is as far as the hills give us leave to see it. 

I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think 
there must be several hundreds of sail : and I could not but 35 
applaud the contrivance, for ten thousand people and more, 
who attended ship affairs, were certainly sheltered here from 
the violence of the contagion, and lived very safe and very easy. 



64 



MEAIOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



I returned t'> luv uavh chvelling very well satisfied with 
my daA''> jMiiru-v. and I'arti-jnlarly witli the poor man; also 
I rej'ji-jrd 10 tliat suedi little sanctnaries were provided 
for so many families in a time of such desolation. I 

5 ohservo'l. also, tliat as tli^^ vi^'Lene^:^ of the plague ha*;! 
increased, so the ships which had la.mili-s on V-oard reni'jved 
and went farther oh^ till, as I w- r-M. >'n;.e AVinit '^nite 
away t'~' S':^a. and put int-:* such 1 - and safe roads on 

the nordi coast, as thev cjuld l - - ' a - :a. 

10 Indeed, the di-rr^ s- -f th^' p' -^pL/ at this seafaring en<I ':'f 
the toAvn was A"-iy ilahaaMa and df><erved the o^reate^t 
commi-LU'ation : ha^t. al ts ! ihi- av:;s a time when CA'^rv one's 
l^'riv.tin safety >m nr-ar tlaaa. tl).'U they had n^j I'aau tc» 
pity th" di.>trc.->c\s uf other.- : for ev<-vy ■ -ne had dt-ath. a- it 

15 Avere, at his door, and manv oVlIi in their families, and knew 
not Avhat to do, or AAdiith^r t^j liy. 

But as I am noAv talkin-^ of the tiuic^ Avhen the plague 
raged at the eastinaim-.a-t p/irts of tlio t'jAvn : Iioav for a L:'ng 
time the people of th^a-'' parts liaLl tlattorn.! themselves that 

20 they should escape, an^l fioAv tliey AVare -va:pri-cal vrhon it 
came upon them as it did ; f^r. ira:L-ah it oj.me ttpcai tla;an 
like an arme^l man when it did come ; I say. this brin-^- me 
back to the thr^'? pca'ir man AAdio Avan'lered frcm AVai'ping, 
not ku'jAving Avhith^r tc"' gey. or AAdiat to do, and av1i^-i I 

25 mentioned before; on- a bi-^aait-bMkei. car? a -ad-makor, and 
the other a joiner, all -f AV:'ppin^. .ar thar^-ab oats. 

The sleepin-— i.irl -acurity of that part, as I haA'e ob- 
served, was stich tia.t th.'y not only did not shift for 
themselves, as others 'lii;L but thav boasted of being safe, 

30 and of safety being Avith tlaun : and many pe':ado f,,:-'d C'Ut 
of the city, and out ^f rPa infactad suburbs I'j AVappirig, 
Ratcliff, Limehouse. 1'' a^lar. and such jjhict^s, as to places of 
security ; and it is n- 't at all unlikely that thek doing this 
helped to bring the plague that way faster than it might 

35 otherwise have come. For, though I am much for people's 
flying away, and emptying such a toAAm as this, upon the 
first appearance of a like visitation, and that all p- 1 b u 
have any possible retreat, should make use of it in d 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



65 



be gone ; yet, I must say, wlien all that will fly are gone, 
those that are left, and must stand it, should stand stock 
still where they are, and not shift from one end of the town, 
or one part of the town, to the other ; for that is the bane 
and mischief of the whole, and they carry the plague from 5 
house to house in their very clothes. 

I come back to my three men : their story has a moral in 
every part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some 
■ who they joined Avith, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, 
or women either, if ever such a time comes again ; and if 10 
there was no other end in recording it, I think this a very 
just one, whether my account be exactly according to the 
fact or no. 

Two of them were said to be brothers, the one an old 
soldier, but now a biscuit-baker; the other a lame sailor, 15 
but now a sail-maker; the third a joiner. Says John, the 
biscuit-baker, one day to Thomas, his brother, the sail- 
maker, " Brother Tom, what will become of us ? the plague 
grows hot in the city, and increases this way : what shall 
we do V 20 

" Truly," says Thomas, " I am at a great loss what to do ; 
for, I find, if it comes down into Wapping, I shall be turned 
out of my lodging." And thus they began to talk of it 
beforehand. 

John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom ! If you are, I 25 
don't know who will take you in ; for people are so afraid 
of one another now, there is no getting a lodging anywhere. 

Tho, Why, the people where I lodge are good, civil 
people, and have kindness enough for me too ; but they 
say I go abroad every day to my work, and it will be 30 
dangerous ; and they talk of locking themselves up, and 
letting nobody come near them. 

John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they 
resolve to venture staying in town. 

Tho, I^ay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too ; 35 
for, except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and 
which I am just a-finishing, I am like to get no more work 
a great whili^. There 's no trade stirs now ; workmen and 



66 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



servants are turned off everywhere, so that I might he glad 
to he locked up too. But I do not see they will he willing 
to consent to that any more than to the other. 

John. Why, what will you do then, hrother^ And what 
5 shall I do 1 for I am almost as had as you. The people 
Avhere I lodge are all gone into the country hut a maid, and 
she is to go next week, and to shut the house quite up, so 
that I shall he turned adrift to the wide W(nid hefore you ; 
and I am resolved to go aAvay too, if I knew hut where to go. 

10 TIio. We were hoth distracted we did not go away at 
first ; then we might ha' travelled anywhere. There is no 
stirring now ; we shall he starved if we pretend to go out 
of town ; they won't let us have victuals — no, not for our 
money ; nor let us come into the towns, much less into their 

15 houses. 

John. And that which is almost as had, I have hut little 
money to help myself with neither. 

Tho. As to that we might make shift. I have a little, 
though not much ; hut I tell you there 's no stirring on the 
20 road. I know a couple of poor honest men in our street 
have attempted to travel ; and at Barnet, or Whetstone, or 
thereahout, the people offered to fire at them if they pre- 
tended to go forward ; so they are came hack again quite 
discouraged. 

25 John. I would have ventured their fire if I had heen 
there. If I had heen denied food for my money, they 
should have seen me take it hefore their faces ; and if I had 
tendered money for it, they could not have taken any course 
Avith me hy the law. 

30 Tho. You talk your old soldier's language, as if you were 
in the Low Countries now ; hut this is a serious thing. The 
people have good reason to keep anyhody off that they are 
not satisfied are sound at such a time as this ; and we must 
not plunder them, 

35 John. No, hrother, you mistake the case, and mistake me 
too. I would plunder nohody ; hut for any town upon the 
road to deny me leave to 2)ass through the town in the open 
highway, and deny me provisions for my money, is to say 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



67 



the town has a right to starve me to death, which cannot be 
true. 

Tlio. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again 
from whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you. 

John. But the next town behind me will, by the same 5 
rule, deny me leave to go back, and so they do starve me 
between them ; besides, there is no law to prohibit my 
travelling Avherever I will on the road. 

Tho. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing 
with them at every toAvn on the road, that it is not for IC 
poor men to do it, or to undertake it, at such a time as 
this is especially. 

John, Why, brother, our condition, at this rate, is worse 
than anybody's else ; for we can neither go away nor stay 
here. I am of the same mind with the lepers of Samaria ; 15 
*'If we stay here, Ave are sure to die." I mean, especially 
as you and I are situated, without a dwelling-house of our 
OAvn, and without lodging in anybody's else. There is no 
lying in the street at such a time as this ; we had as good go 
into the dead-cart at once. Therefore, I say, if Ave stay 20 
here, we are sure to die ; and if Ave go aAvay, Ave can but die. 
I am resolved to begone. 

Tho. You Avill go aAvay 1 Whither aa^lQ you go and Avhat 
can you do 1 I Avould as Avillingiy go aAvay as you, if I knew 
whither ; but Ave have no acquaintance, no friends. Here 25 
we were born, and here we must die. 

John. Look you, Tom, the Avhole kingdom is my native 
country as Avell as this toAvn. You may as Avell say, I must 
not go out of my house if it is on fire, as that I must 
not go out of the town I was born in when it is infected 30 
with the plague. I Avas born in England, and have a right 
to live in it if I can. 

Tho. But, you know, every vagrant person may, by the* 
laAvs of England, be taken up, and passed back to their last 
legal settlement. 35 

John, But hoAv shall they make me vagrant? I desire 
only to travel on upon my laAvful occasions. 

Tho, ^Yhat laAvful occasions can we pretend to travel, 



68 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



or rather wander, upon? They will not be put off with 
words. 

John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion 1 
and do they not all know that the fact is true ? We cannot 
5 be said to dissemble. 

Tho. But, suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go 1 

John. Anywhere to save our lives. It is time enough to 
consider that when we are got out of this town. If I am 
once out of this dreadful place, I care not where I go. 
10 Tho. We shall be driven to great extremities. I know 
not what to think of it. 

John. Well, Tom, consider of it a little. 

This was about the beginning of July ; and though the 
plague was come forward in the west and north parts of the 
15 town, yet all Wapping, as I have observed before, and 
Eedriff, and Eatcliff, and Limehouse, and Poplar ; in short, 
Deptford and Greenwich, all both sides of the river from 
the Hermitage, and from over against it, quite down to 
Blackwall, was entirely free. There had not one person 
20 died of the plague in aU Stepney parish, and not one on 
the south side of Whitechapel-road — no, not in any parish ; 
and yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up 
to 1006. 

It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met 
25 again, and then the case was a little altered, and the plague 
was exceedingly advanced, and the number greatly increased. 
The bill was up at 2785, and prodigiously increasing ; though 
still both sides of the river, as below, kept pretty weU. But 
some began to die in Eedriff, and about five or six in 
30 Eatcliff-highway, when the sail-maker came to his brother 
John, express, and in some fright, for he was absolutely 
warned out of his lodging, and had only a week to provide 
himself. His brother John was in as bad a case, for he was 
quite out; and had only begged leave of his master, the 
35 biscuit-maker, to lodge in an outhouse belonging to his 
workhouse, where he only lay upon straw, with some biscuit 
sacks, or bread sacks, as they called them, laid upon it, and 
some of the same sacks to cover him. 



MElSfOTES OF THE PLAGUE. 



69 



Here they resolved, seeing all employment being at an 
end, and no work or wages to be had, they would make the 
best of their way to get out of the reach of the dreadful 
infection ; and being as good husbands as they could, would 
endeavour to live upon what they had as long as it would 5 
last, and then work for more, if they could get work any- 
where of any kind, let it be what it would. 

While they were considering to put this resolution in 
practice in the best manner they could, the third man, who 
was acquainted very well with the sail-maker, came to know 10 
of the design, and got leave to be one of the number. Aad 
thus they prepared to set out. 

It happened that they had not an equal share of money ; 
but as the sail-maker, who had the best stock, was, besides 
his being lame, the most unfit to expect to get anything by 15 
working in the country, so he was content that what money 
they had should all go into one public stock, on condition 
that whatever any one of them could gain more than 
another, it should, without any grudging, be all added to 
the same public stock. 20 

They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as 
possible, because they resolved at first to travel on foot, and 
to go a great way, that they might, if possible, be effectually 
safe. And a great many consultations they had with them- 
selves before they could agree about what way they should 25 
travel ; which they were so far from adjusting, that even to 
the morning they set out they were not resolved on it. 

At last the seaman put in a hint that determined it. 
* First,' says he, * the weather is very hot, and therefore I am 
for travelling north, that we may not have the sun upon our 30 
faces and beating on our breasts, which will heat and suffocate 
us ; and I have been told,' says he, ' that it is not good to 
overheat our blood at a time when, for aught we know, the 
infection may be in the very air. In the next place,' says 
he, ' I am for gomg the way that may be contrary to the 35 
wind as it may blow when we set out, that we may not have 
the mnd blow the air of the city on our backs as we go.' 
These two cautions were approved of, if it could be brought 



70 



AIEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



so to hit that the wind might not be in the south when they 
set out to go north. 

John, the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his 
opinion. ' First,' says he, ' we none of us expect to get any 
5 lodging on the road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just 
in the open air, though it be warm weather, yet it may be 
wet and damp ; and we have a double reason to take care of 
our healths at such a time as this. And therefore,' says he, 
' you, brother Tom, that are a sail-maker, might easily make 

10 us a little tent, and I will undertake to set it up every night, 
and take it down, and a fig for all the inns in England. If 
we have a good tent over our heads, we shall do well enough.' 

The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave 
that to him; he would undertake to build them a house 

15 every night with his hatchet and mallet, though he had no 
other tools, which should be fully to their satisfaction, and 
as good as a tent. 

The soldier and the joiner disputed that pomt some time, 
but at last the soldier carried it for a tent ; the only objection 

20 against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that 
would increase their baggage too much, the weather being 
hot. But the sail-maker had a piece of good hap fell in, 
which made that easy ; for his master who he worked for, 
having a rope-walk as well as his sail- making trade, had a 

25 little poor horse that he made no use of then, and being 
willing to assist the tliree honest men, he gave them the 
horse for the carr3^ing their baggage ; also, for a small matter 
of three days work that his man did for him before he went, 
he let him have an old top- gallant sail, that was worn out, 

30 but was sufficient, and more than enough, to make a very 
good tent. The soldier showed how to shape it, and they 
soon, by his direction, made their tent, and fitted it with 
poles or staves for the pm^pose, and thus they were furnished 
for their journey ; viz. three men, one tent, one horse, one 

35 gun ; for the soldier would not go without arms, for now he 
said he was no more a biscuit-baker, 1)ut a trooper. The 
joiner liad a small bag of tools, such as might be useful, if he 
should get any work abroad, as well for their subsistence as 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



71 



his own. What money they had, they brought all into one 
public stock ; and thus they began their journey. It seems 
that in the morning when they set out, the wind blew, as the 
sailor said, by his pocket-compass, at N.W. by W. ; so they 
directed, or rather resolved to direct, their course N.W. 5 

But then a difficulty came in their way, that as they set 
out from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, 
and that the plague was now very violent, especially on the 
north side of the city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate 
parish, they did not think it safe for them to go near those 10 
parts ; so they went away east through Eatcliff-highway, as 
far as Eatcliff- cross, and leaving Stepney church still on their 
left hand, being afraid to come up from Eatcliff-cross to 
Mile-end, because they must come just by the churchyard, 
and because the wmd, that seemed to blow more from the 15 
west, blowed directly from the side of the city where the 
plague was hottest ; so, I say, leaving Stepney, they fetched 
a long compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into 
the great road just at Bow. 

Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have 20 
questioned them ; but they, crossing the road into a narrow 
way that turns out of the hither end of the town of Boav, 
to Old-Ford, avoided any encpiiry there, and travelled to Old- 
Ford. The constables everywhere were upon their guard, not 
so much it seems to stop people passing by, as to stop them 25 
from taking up their abode in their towns; and, withal, 
because of a report that was newly raised at that time, and 
that indeed was not very improbable, viz. that the poor 
people in London, being distressed, and starved for want of 
work, and by that means for Avant of bread, were up in 30 
arms, and had raised a tumult, and that they would come 
out to all the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I 
say, was only a rumour, and it was very well it was no 
more ; but it was not so far off from being a reality as it has 
been thought, for in a few weeks more the poor people 35 
became so desperate by the calamity they suffered, that they 
were with great difficulty kept from running out into the 
fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces wherever they 



72 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



came; and, as I have observed before, nothing hindered 
them but that the plague raged so violently, and fell in upon 
them so furiously, that they rather went to the grave by 
thousands than into the fields in mobs by thousands ; for in 
5 the parts about the parish of St. Sepulchre's, Clerkenwell, 
Cripplegate, Bishopgate, and Shoreditch, which were the 
places where the mob began to threaten, the distemper 
came on so furiously that there died in those few parishes, 
even then, before the plague was come to its height, no less 

10 than 5361 people in the first three weeks in Auguet, when, 
at the same time, the parts about Wapping, Ratclifi^, and 
Eotherliithe, were, as before described, hardly touched, or 
but very lightly; so that, in a word, though, as I said 
before, the good management of the Lord Mayor and 

15 justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of 
the people from breaking out in rabbles and tumults, and, 
in short, from the poor plunderijig the rich ; I say, though 
they did much, the dead-carts did more, for, as I have said, 
that, in five parishes only, there died above 5000 in twenty 

20 days, so there might be probably three times that number 
sick all that time, for some recovered, and great numbers 
fell sick every day, and died afterwards. Besides, I must 
still be allowed to say, that if the bills of mortality said five 
thousand, I always believed it was near twice as many in 

25 reality, there being no room to believe that the account they 
gave was right, or that, indeed, they were, among such con- 
fusions as I saw them in, in any condition to keep an exact 
account. 

But to return to my travellers. Here they were only 
SO examined, and as they seemed rather coming from the 
country than from the city, they found the people easier 
with them ; that they talked to them, let them come into 
a public-house, where the constable and his warders were, 
and gave them drink and some victuals, which greatly 
S5 refreshed and encouraged them ; and here it came into their 
heads to say, when they should be enquired of afterwards, 
not that tliey came from London, but that they came out of 
Essex. 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



73 



To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much 
favour of the constable at Old-Ford, as to give them a 
certificate of their passing from Essex through that village, 
and that they had not been at London ; which, though false 
in the common acceptation of London in the county, yet 5 
was literally true ; Wapping or Ratcliff being no part either 
of the city or Hberty. 

This certificate, directed to the next constable, that was 
"at Homerton, one of the hamlets of the parish of Hackney, 
was so serviceable to them, that it procured them not a free 10 
passage there only, but a full certificate of health from a 
justice of the peace; who, upon the constable's application, 
granted it without much difficulty. And thus they passed 
through the long divided town of Hackney (for it lay then 
in several separated hamlets), and travelled on till they 15 
came into the great north road, on the top of Stamford 
Hill. 

By this time they began to be weary ; and so, in the back 
road from Hackney, a little before it opened into the said 
great road, they resolved to set up their tent, and encamp 20 
for the first night; which they did accordingly, with this 
addition, that finding a barn, or a building like a barn, and 
first searching as well as they could to be sure there was 
nobody in it, they set up their tent, with the head of it 
against the barn ; this they did also because the wind blew 25 
that night very high, and they were but young at such a 
way of lodging, as well as at the managing their tent. 

Here they went to sleep ; but the joiner, a grave and 
sober man, and not pleased with their lying at this loose 
rate the first night, could not sleep, and resolved, after 30 
trying to sleep to no purpose, that he would get out, and 
taking the gun in his hand, stand sentinel, and guard his 
companions. So, with the gun in his hand, he walked to 
and again before the barn, for that stood in the field near 
the road, but within the hedge. He had not been long 35 
upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on as 
if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he 
thought, directly towards the barn. He did not presently 



74 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGtTE. 



awake his companions, but in a few minntes more their 
noise growing louder and louder, the biscuit-baker called to 
him and asked him what was the matter, and quickly 
started out too. The other being the lame sail-maker, and 
5 most weary, lay still in the tent. 

As they expected, so the people who they had heard 
came on directly to the barn ; when one of our travellers 
challenged, like soldiers upon the guard, with, " Who comes 
there The people did not answer immediately, but one 

10 of them speaking to another that was behind him, "Alas! 
alas! we are all disappointed," says he, "here are some 
people before us, the barn is taken up." 

They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise ; and 
it seems there was about thirteen of them in all, and some 

15 women among them. They consulted together what they 
should do ; and by their discourse, our travellers soon found 
they were poor distressed people too, like themselves, 
seeking shelter and safety; and, besides, our travellers had 
no need to be afraid of their coming up to disturb them, for 

20 as soon as they heard the words, "Who comes there f 
these could hear the women say, as if frighted, '*Do not go 
near them ; how do you know but they may have the 
plagued" And when one of the men said, "Let us but 
speak to them," the women said, "Xo, don't, by any means. 

25 We have escaped thus far, by the goodness of God ; do not 
let us run into danger now, we beseech you." 

Our travellers found by this time that they were a good, 
sober sort of people, and flying for their lives as they Avere ; 
and as they were encouraged by it, so John said to the 

30 joiner, his comrade, "Let us encourage them too, as much 
as we can." So he called to them, "Hark ye, good people/' 
says the joiner, "we find by your talk that you are fleeing 
from the same dreadful enemy as we are ; do not be afraid 
of us, we are only three poor men of us. If you are free 

35 from the distemper, you shall not be hurt by us , we are 
not in the barn, but in a little tent here on the outside, and 
we will remove for you ; we can set up our tent again 
immediately anywhere else." And upon this a parley began 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGTJE. 



75 



between the joiner, whose name was Richard, and one of 
their men, who said his name was FL-rd. 

Ford. And do von assure ns that xow are all sound men 1 
Richard. Xay, we are concerned to tell you of it, that 
you may not be uneasy, or think yourselves in danger ; but 5 
you see we do not drsire you should put yourselves into any 
danger, and therefore I tell you we have not made use of the 
l)arn, so we will remove from it that you may be safe and 
we also. 

Ford. That is very kind and charitalile. But if we have 10 
reason to be satisfied that you are sound and free from the 
visitation, why should we make you remove now you are 
settled in your lodging, and it may be are laid down to rest 1 
AVe will go into the barn, if you please, to rest ourselves 
awhile, and we need not disturb you. 15 

Bicli. Well, but you are more than we are ; I hope you 
will assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the 
danger is as great horn you to us, as from us to you. 

Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it is 
but few ; what may be our portion still, we know not, but 20 
hitherto we are preserved. 

Etch. What part of the town do you come from? Was 
the plague come to the places wliere you lived 1 

Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or 
else we had not fle>l away as we do ; but we believe there 25 
will be very few left alive behind us. 

Btch, What part do you come from 1 

Ford. We are ni'j-t of us of Cripplegate parish, only 
two or three of Cleric tniAvell parish, but on the hither side. 

Bich. How then Avas it that you came away no sooner ] 30 

Ford We have been away some time, and kept together 
as Avell as we could at the liither end of Islington, where we 
got leave to he in an old uninhabited house, and had some 
bedding and conveniences of our OAvn that we brought with 
us ; but the plague is come up into Islington too, and a 35 
house next door to our poor dwelling was infected and shut 
up, and we are come away in a fright. 

Bich. And what way are you going 1 



76 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



Ford. As our lot shall cast us, we know not whither ; 
but God will guide those that look up to Him. 

They parleyed no farther at that time, but came all up to 
the barn, and with some difficulty got into it. There was 

5 nothing but hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, 
and they accommodated themselves as well as they could, 
and went to rest but our travellers observed, that before 
they went to sleep, an ancient man, who it seems was the 
father of one of the women, went to prayer with all the 

10 company, recommending themselves to the blessing and 
direction of Providence before they went to sleep. 

It was soon day at that time of the year ; and as Eichard, 
the joiner, had kept guard the first part of the night, so John, 
the soldier, relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, 

15 and they began to be acquainted with one another It seems, 
when they left Islington, they intended to have gone north 
away to Highgate, but were stopped at Holloway, and there 
they would not let them pass ; so they crossed over the 
fields and hills to the eastward, and came out at the Boarded 

20 river, and so avoiding the towns, they left Hornsey on the 
left hand, and ISTewington on the right hand, and came into 
the great road about Stamford-Hill on that side, as the three 
travellers had done on the other side. And now they had 
thoughts of going over the river in the marshes, and make 

25 forwards to Epping-Forest, where they hoped they should 
get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not 
so poor as to be in want ; at least, they had enough to subsist 
them moderately for two or three months, when, as they 
said, they were in hopes the cold weather would check the 

30 infection, or at least the violence of it would have sj^ent 
itself, and would abate, if it was only for want of people 
left alive to be infected. 

This Avas much the fate of our three travellers, only that 
they seemed to be the better furnislied for travelling, and 

35 had it in their view to go further off ; for as to the first, 
they did not propose to go further than one day's journey, 
that so they might have intelligence, every two or three 
days, liow tilings were at London. 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



77 



But here our travellers found themselves imder an un- 
expected inconvenience, namely, that of their horse ; for, by 
means of the horse to carry their baggage, they were obliged 
to keep in the road, whereas the people of this other band 
went over the fields or roads, path or no path, way or no 5 
way, as they pleased; neither had they any occasion to 
pass through any town, or come near any town, other than 
■ to buy such things as they wanted for their necessary 
subsistence; and in that indeed they were put to much 
difficulty, of which in its place. 10 

Eut our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or 
else they must commit sj^oil, and do the country a great 
deal of damage, in breaking down fences and gates, to go 
over enclosed fields, which they were loath to do if they 
could help it. 15 

Our three travellers, however, had a gTeat mind to join 
themselves to this company, and take their lot with them ; 
and, after some discourse, they laid aside their first design, 
which looked northward, and resolved to follow the other 
into Essex : so, in the morning they took up their tent and 20 
loaded their horse, and away they travelled all together. 

They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river 
side, the ferryman being afraid of them; but, after some 
parley at a distance, the ferryman was content to bring his 
boat to a place distant from the usual ferry, and leave it 25 
there for them to take it; so, putting themselves over, he 
directed them to leave the boat, and he, having another 
boat, said he would fetch it again, wliich it seems, however, 
he did not do for above eight days. 

Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had 30 
a supply of victuals and drink, which he^ brought and left 
in the boat for them, but not without, as I said, having 
received the money beforehand. But now our travellers 
were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse 
over, the boat being small and not fit for it ; and at last 35 
could not do it without unloading the baggage, and making 
him swim over. 

From the river they travelled towards the forest; but 



78 



I^.IEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



when they came to AYalthanisto^v, the pec)ple of that to^vn 
denied to admit them, as was the case everywhere; the 
constables and their watchmen kept them off at a distance, 
and parleyed vnth them. Thc}^ gave the same account of 
5 themselves as before, but these gave no credit to what they 
said, giving it for a reason, that two or three companies had 
already come that way and made the like pretences, but 
that they had given several people the distemper in the 
towns where they had passed, and had been afterwards 

10 so hardly used by the country, though witli justice too, 
as they had deser\Td, that, about Brentwood or that way, 
several of them perished in the fields, whether of the 
plague, or of mere want and distress, they could not tell. 
This was a good reason, indeed, why the people of 

15 AValthamstow should be very cautious, and ^^■hy they should 
resolve not to entertain anybody that they were not well 
satisfied of; but, as Eichard the joiner, and one of the other 
men who parleyed with them, told them it was no reason 
why they sh<;iuld block up the roads, and refuse to let people 

20 pass through the town, and who asked nothing of them, but 
to go through the street ; that, if their people Avere afraid of 
them, they might go into their houses and shut their doors ; 
tliey neither would show them civility nor incivility, but go 
on about their business. 

25 The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by 
reason, continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing ; 
so the two men that talked with them went back to their 
fellows, to consult what was to be done. It was very dis- 
couraging m the whole, and they knew not what to do for a 

30 good while ; but at last John the soldier and biscuit-baker, 
considering awhile, "Come," says he, "leave the rest of the 
parley to me." He had not appeared yet; so he sets the 
joiner Richard to w^ork to cut some poles out of the trees, 
and shape them as like guns as he could, and, in a little 

35 time, he had five or six fair muskets, which, at a distance, 
would not be known ; and about the part where the lock of 
a gun is, he caused them to wrap cloths and rags, such as 
they had, as soldiers do in wet weather to preserve the locks 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



79 



of their pieces from rust ; tlie rest was discoloured with clay 
or mud, such as they could get ; and all this while the rest 
of them sat under the trees by his direction, in two or three 
bodies, where they made fires at a good distance from one 
another. 5 

While this was doing, he advanced himself, and two or 
tliree with him, and set uji their tent in the lane, within sight 
of the barrier which the townsmen had made, and set a 
sentinel just by it Avith the real gun, the only one they had, 
and Avho walked to and fro with the gun on his shoulder, so 10 
as that the people of the town might see them ; also he tied 
the horse to a gate in the hedge just by, and got some dry 
sticks together, and kindled a fire on the other side of the 
tent, so that the people of the town could see the fire and 
the smoke, but could not see what they were doing at it. 15 

After the country people had looked upon them very 
earnestly a great while, and by all that they could see, could 
not but suppose there were a great many in company, they 
began to be uneasy, not for their going away, but for staying 
where they were ; and above all, perceiving they had horses 20 
and arms, for they had seen one horse and one gun at the 
tent, and they had seen others of them walk about the field 
on the inside of the hedge by the side of the lane with their 
muskets, as they took them to be, shouldered ; I say, upon 
such a sight as this, you may be assured they were alarmed 25 
and terribly frighted ; and it seems they went to a justice 
of the peace to know what they should do. What the justice 
advised them to I know not, but towards the evening, they 
called from the barrier, as above, to the sentinel at the tent. 
What do you want f says John. 30 
Why, what do you intend to do V says the constable. 
To do r says John, What would you have us to do 1 " 

Const. Why don't you be gone 1 What do you stay there 
fori 

John, Why do you stop us on the king's highway, and 35 
pretend to refuse us leave to go on our way 1 

Const. We are not bound to tell you the reason, though 
we did let you know it was because of the plague. 



80 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



John. We told you we were all soimd and free from the 
plague, wliicli we were not bound to have satisfied you of ; 
and yet you pretend to stop us on the highway. 

Const, We have a right to stop it ujd, and our own 
5 safety obliges us to it ; besides, this is not the king's high- 
way, it is a way upon sufiferance. You see here is a 
gate, and, if we do let people pass here, we make them 
pay toll. 

John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well as 
10 you, and you may see we are flying for our lives, and it is 
very unchristian and unjust to stop us. 

Const. You may go Lack from whence you came 3 we do 
not hinder you fr<jni tliat. 

John. Xo, it is a str^juger enemy than you that keeps us 
15 from doing that, or else Ave should not have come hither. 
Const. Wt41, yuu may go any other way then. 
John. Xo, no ; I suppose you see we are able to send you 
going and all the people of your parish, and come through 
your town Avlien wt' will.. Imt, since yon have stopped us 
20 here, we are content ; you see we have encamped here, and 
here we mil live ; we hope you will furnish us with 
victuals. 

Const. We furnish you ! Vsliat mean you by that ? 
John. Wliy, you would not have us starve, would youl 
25 If you stop us here, you must keep us. 

Const. You will Ije ill kept at (jui maintenance. 
John, If you stint us, we shall make oiu^selves the better 
allowance. 

Const. ^Miy, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by 
30 force, wiU you ^ 

John. We have offered no violence to you yet, why do 
you seem to oblige us to it ^ I am an old soldier and cannot 
starve ; and if you tliink we shall be obliged to go back for 
want of provisions, you are mistaken. 
85 Const. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be 
strong enough for you. I have orders to raise the coimty 
upon you. 

John, It is you that threaten, not we ; and, since you are 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



81 



for mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you 
time for it. We sliall begin our march in a few minutes. ^ 
Const. What is it ycu demand of us 

John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go 
through the town. We should have offered no injury to 5 
any of you, neither would you have had any injury or 
loss by us j we are not thieves, but poor people in distress, 
and flying from the dreadful plague in London, which 
devours thousands every week. We wonder how you could 
be so unmerciful. 10 

Const. Self-preservation obliges us. 

John. What ! To shut up your compassion in a case 
of such distress as this 1 

Const. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left 
hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to 15 
have gates opened for you. 

John. Our horsemen camiotf pass with our baggage that 
way ; it does not lead into the road that we want to go, and 
why should you force us out of the roadl Besides, you 
have kept us here all day without any provisions but such 20 
as we brought with us ; I think you ought to send us some 
provisions for our relief. 

Const. If you will go another way, we will send you 
some provisions. 

John. That is the way to have all the towns in the county 25 
stop up the wa^s against us. 

Const. If they all furnish you with food, what will you 
be the worse 1 I see you have tents, you want no lodging. 

John. Well; what quantity of provisions will you 
send usi 30 

Const. How many are you 1 

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for aU our company : 
we are in tliree companies. If you will send us bread for 
twenty men, and about six or seven women, for three days, 
and show us the way over the field you speak of, we desire 35 

* This so frighted the constable and the people that were with him, 
that they immediately changed their note, 
t They had but one horse among them. 

G 



82 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



not to put your pe<:'ple into any fear for n? : we will go out 

of our way to oblige yuu. tliougli we are as free from infec- 
tion as you are. 

Const. And will you assure us that your other people 
5 shall offer us no u^av disturbance 1 

Jol/ii. Xc'. ri':' ; y^ju niav d^penLl on it. 

C'jnst. Ymu UiU-t L'hl:.;^ yMiir^Mlf tO'j. that n<:.ne of your 
people shall c^iii'? a stL^p n^-;^^LU'■ than where tlie provisions 
we s^^nd yuu >hall 1>? d-wn. 
10 ' J'jhii. I an-wnr f-ji it we will not.* 

Aceordingiv tli^:;v -^i\x t'j th^ pla<~:e twenty loaves ':'f bread, 
and three C'V f'jur Lu,- pi-^L>>- ''A ^'jC'd ht^ef. and opened some 
gates. tlirou_h vrhi'jh tli^v pa^-nd. l:>ut none of tliem had 
C'jura-e S'j muLh as t':- L"":'k 'jut t'j s-h them go : and. as it 
15 wa- HYHning. if th-v lia^l L '-k^'h they cuuld not have seen 
th^uu >':^ as t':' krajw li'jvr f^w rli^'V were. 

This wa- J'dm tlie ^L'Lli^u■"- iiian-^-nauit : luit this gave 
such an al;irra to th^:^ C'vantv. thrit. luul they really h-';ri two 
or thr^jH hundred, the whok county would have k'c^ui r k^-d 
20 upcai tli^?ni, au'l tli^y w.juld have k>een stnt to pri.-LCi, or 
perhap- kn'^'L-k'^'l -jn tlit^ h^ad. 

Th^w vau^j S'>ui made sensible of this; for, tAvo <iav> aft':u- 
waril-. thf:^y f'jun^l several parties of h':'rsf?mf:ui. an^l f':"jtmcm 
also, abriut, in pursuit of thr^'C cuUircaii'- niH^i armed, as 
25 they sai*;!, Avith musk^Us, Avho A\-erf biv.ke c^ut fr^jm Lon^bju, 
and had the pL-i^ue upcai them: and that AVt-re not only 
spreading the distemper among the people, but plundnring- 
the country. 

As they saAV noAv the consequence of their cast^, tliey sc'on 
30 saw the danger they Avere in ; so they resolved, by tlie a- 1 vice 
also of the old soldi^r, t u iliA'ide themselves again. John 
and his two comrades Avitli the horse went aAvay as if to- 
wards Waltham ; the other in tAvo companies, but all a little 
asunder, and went toAvards Epjdng. 

35 * Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Captain 
Richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the 
marshes, and meet them in the forest ; which was all a sham, for they 
tad no Captain Richard, or any such company, 



MEMOIKS OF THE PLAGUE. 



83 



The first niglit they encamped all in the forest, and not 
far off of one another, but not setting np the tent, lest that 
should discover them. On the other hand, Kichard went to 
work ^Yith his axe and his hatchet; and cutting down 
1 (ranches of trees, he built thi'ee tents or hovels, in which 5 
they all encamped with as much convenience as they could 
expect. 

• The provision- tliey had at Walthamstow, served them 
very plentifully this night ; and as for the next, they left it 
to Providence. They had fared so well with the old soldier's 10 
coH'iuLt. that they now willingly made him their leader, and 
the nisr of his conduct appeared to be very good. He told 
them, that they were now at a proper distance enough from 
London : that, as tliev need not be immediately beholden to 
the county for inlief, they ottght to be as carefnl the country 15 
did not infect them, as that they did not infect the country ; 
that what little money they had, they must be as frugal of 
as they coidd ; that as he Avould not have them think of 
offering the country any violence, so they must endeavour to 
make the sense of their condition go as far with the country 20 
as it could. They all referred themselves to his direction ; 
80 they left their three houses standing, and the next day 
went away towards Epping ; the captain also, for so they 
now called him, and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside 
their design of going to AYaltham, and all went together. 25 

When they came near Epping, they halted, choosing out a 
proper place in the open forest, not very near the highway 
but not far out of it, on the north side, under a little cluster 
of low u\l trees. Here they pitched their little camp, 
which cunsisted of three large tents or huts made of poles, 30 
which their carpenter, and such as were his assistants, cut 
: down and fixed in the ground in a circle, binding all the 
small ends together at the top, and thickening the sides with 
|i boughs of trees and bushes, so that they were completely 
j close and warm. They had, besides this, a little tent where 35 
I the w^omen lay hy themselves, and a hut to put the horse in. 

It happened that the next day, or the next but one, was 
! market-day at Eppmg, when Captain Jolin and one of the 



84 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



other men went to market, and bouglit some provisions, that 
is to say, bread and some mutton and beef, and two of the 
women went separately, as if they had not belonged to the 
rest, and bought more. John took the horse to bring it home, 
6 and the sack, which the carpenter carried his tools in, to put 
it in ; the carpenter went to work, and made them benches 
and stools to sit on, such as the wood he could get would 
afford, and a kind of a table to dine on. 

Thej were taken no notice of for two or three days, but 

10 after that abundance of people ran out of the town to look 
at them, and all the country was alarmed about them. The 
people at first seemed afraid to come near them ; and, on tlie 
other hand, they desired the peo2:»le to keep off, for there was 
a rumour that the plague was at Waltham, and that it had 

15 been in Epping two or three days ; so John called out to 
them not to come to them, ^Tor," says he, "we are all 
whole and sound people here, and we would not have 
you bring the plague among us, nor pretend we brought 
it among you." 

20 After this the parish officers came up to them, and parleyed 
with them at a distance, and desired to know who they were, 
and by what authority they pretended to fix their stand at 
that place? John answered very frankly, they were poor 
distressed people from London, who, foreseeing the misery 

25 they should be reduced to, if the plague spread into the city, 
had fled out in time for their lives, and, having no acquaintance 
or relations to fly to, had first taken up at Islington, but the 
plague being come into that town, were fled further ; and as 
they supposed that the people of Epping might have refused 

30 them coming into their town, they had pitched their tents 
thus in the open field, and in the forest, beiiig willing to bear 
all the hardships of such a disconsolate lodging, rather than 
have any one think, or be afraid, that they should receive 
injury by them. 

.35 At first the Epping people talked roughly to them, and 
told them they must remove ; that this was no place for 
them ; and that they pretended to be sound and well, but 
that they might be infected with the plague for aught they 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



85 



knew, and might infect the whole country, and they could 
not suffer them there. 

John argued very calmly with them a gTeat 'whil^. and told 
them that London was the place by which they, that is, the 
townsmen of Epping and all the country round them suh- 5 
sisted ; to whom they sold the produce of their lands, and 
out of whom they made the rent of their farms ; and to he 
so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any of those by 
whom they gained so much, was very hard ; and they would 
be loath to have it remembered hereafter, and have it told 10 
how barbarous, how unhospitable, and how unkind they were 
to the people of London when they fled from the face of the 
most terrible enemy in the world ; that it would be enough 
to make the name of an Epping man hateful throughout all 
the city, and to have the rabble stone them in the very 15 
streets whenever they came so much as to market : that they 
were not yet seciu^e from being visited themselves, and that, 
as he heard, Waltham was already ; that they would think it 
very hard that when any of them fled fi'om fear before they 
were touched, that they should be denied the liberty of lying 20 
so much as hi the open fields. 

The Eppmg men told them again that they, indeed, said 
they were soimd and free from the infection, but that they 
had no assurance of it ; and that it was reported that there 
had been a great rabble of people at AValthamstow, who 25 
made such pretences of being sound a> they did, but that 
they threatened to plunder the to^vn, and force their way 
whether the parish officers would or no ; that there were 
near 200 of them, and had arms and tents like Low Coimtry 
soldiers ; that they extorted provisions from the town, by 30 
threatening them with living upon them at free-quarter, 
sho^ving their arms, and talking in the language of soldiers ; 
and that several of them beingr grone awav towards Eomford 
and Brentwood, the country had been infected by them, 
and the plague spread into both those large towns, so that 35 
the people durst not go to market there as usual ; that it 
was very likely they were some of that party, and if so, 
they deserved to be sent to the C(:)unty gaul, and be secured 



86 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



till they had made satisfaction for the damage they had 
done, and for the terror and fright they had put the country 
into. 

John answered that what other people had done was 
5 nothing to them ; that they assured them they were all of 
one company; that they had never been more in number 
than they saw them at that time, (which, by the way, was 
very true) ; that they came out in two separate companies, 
but joined l3y the way, their cases being the same , that 

10 they were ready to give what account of themselves any- 
body could desire of them, and to give m their names and 
places of abode, that so they might be called to an account 
for any disorder that they might he guilty of ; that the 
townsmen might see they were content to live hardly, and 

15 only desired a little room to breathe in on the forest where 
it was wholesome, for where it was not, they could not 
stay, and would decamp if they found it otherwise there. 

"But," said the townsmen, "we have a gTeat charge of 
poor upon our hands already, and we must take care not to 

20 increase it ; we suppose you can give us no security agaiust 
your being chargeable to our parish and to the inhabitants, 
any more than you can of being dangerous to us as to the 
infection." 

" Why, look you," says John, "as to being chargeable to 
25 you, we hope we shall not ; if you will relieve us with pro- 
visions for our present necessity, we will be very thankfid ; 
as we all lived without charity when we were at home, so 
we will oblige ourselves fully to repay you, if God please 
to bring us back to our own families and houses in safety, 
30 and to restore health to the people of London. 

"As to our dying here, we assure you, if any of us die, 
we that survive will bury them, and put you to no expence, 
except it should be that we should all die, and then, indeed, 
the last man, not being al)le to bury himself, would put 
35 you to that single expence, which I am persuaded," says 
John, " he would leave enough behind him to pay you for 
the expence of. 

"On the other hand," says John, "if you will shut up 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



87 



all bowels of compassion, and not relieve ns at all, we shall 
not extort any thing by violence, or steal from any one ; Ijiit 
when what little we have is spent, if we perish for want, 
God's will be done." 

John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus 5 
rationally and smoothly to them, that they went away ; and 
though they did not give any consent to their staying 
there, yet they did not molest them, and the poor people 
continued there three or four days longer without any 
disturbance. In this time they had got some remote 10 
acquaintance with a victualling-house at the outskirts of 
the town, to whom they called, at a distance, to bring 
some little things that they wanted, and which they caused 
to be set down at a distance, and always paid for very 
honestly. 15 

During this time the younger people of the toAvn came 
frequently pretty near them, and would stand and look at 
them, and sometimes talk with them at some space between ; 
and particularly it was observed that the first Sabbath-day 
the poor people kept retired, worshipped God together, and 20 
were heard to sing psalms. 

These things, and a quiet, inoffensive behaviour, began to 
get them the good opinion of the country, and people 
began to pity them and speak very well of them ] the con- 
sequence of which was, that, upon the occasion of a very 25 
wet rainy night, a certain gentleman, who lived in the neigh- 
bourhood, sent them a little cart with twelve trusses or 
bundles of straw, as well for them to lodge upon as to cov^er 
and thatch their huts, and to keep them dry. The minister of 
a parish not far off, not knowing of the other, sent them also 30 
about two bushels of wheat, and half a bushel of white peas. 

They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and 
particularly the straw was a very gn-eat comfort to them ; for 
though the ingenious carpenter had made frames for them to 
lie in, like troughs, and filled them with leaves of trees and 35 
such things as they could get, and had cut all their tent- 
cloth out to make cover-lids, yet they lay damp, and hard, 
and unwholesome till this straw came, which was to them 



88 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



like featlier-beds ; and, as Jolin said, more welcome than 
feather-beds would have been at another time. 

This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and 
given an example of charity to these wanderers, others 
5 quickly folloAved, and they received every day some benevo- 
lence or other from the people, but chiefly from the gentlemen 
who dwelt in the country round about : some sent them 
chairs, stools, tables, and such household things as they gave 
notice they wanted; some sent them blankets, rugs, and 

10 coverhds ; some earthenware, and some kitchen-ware for 
ordering their food. 

Encouraged by this good usage, their carpenter, in a few 
days, built them a large shed or house with rafters, and a 
roof in form, and an upper floor, in which they lodged warm, 

15 for the wreath er began to be damp and cold in the beginning 
of September. But this house being very well thatched, and 
the sides and roof made very thick, kept out the cold well 
enough; he made also an earthen wall at one end, with a 
chiimiey in it ; and another of the company, mth a ^'ast doal 

20 of trouble and pains, made a funnel to the chimney to carry 
out the smoke. 

Here they lived very comfortably, though coarsely, till 
the beginning of September, when they had the bad news 
to hear, whether true or not, that the plague, which was 

25 very hot at Waltham- Abbey on one side, and Eomford 
and Brentwood on the other side, was also come to Epping, 
to Woodford, and to most of the towns upon the forest ; 
and wliich, as they said, was brought down among them 
chiefly l)y tlie higglers, and such people as went to and from 

30 London with provisions. 

If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to that 
report which was afterwards spread all over England, but 
which, as I have said, I cannot confirm of my own know- 
ledge, namely, that the market people, carrying provisions 

35 to the city, never got the infection, or carried it back into the 
country ; both which, I have been assured, has been false. 

It might be tliat they were preserved even beyond 
ftxpectation, though not to a miracle ; that abundance went 



MEMOIES OF THE PLAGUE. 



89 



and came and were not touched, and that was much for the 
encouragement of the poor people of London, who had been 
completely miserable if the people that brought provisions to 
the markets had not been many times wonderfully preserved, 
or at least more preserved than could be reasonably expected. 5 

But now these new inmates began to be disturbed more 
effectually ] for the towns about them were really infected, 
and they began to be afraid to trust one another so much as 
to go abroad for such things as they wanted, and this pinched 
them very hard, for now they had little or nothing but what 10 
the charitable gentlemen of the country supplied them with ; 
but, for their encouragement it happened that other gentle- 
men of the country, who had not sent them anything before, 
began to hear of them and supply them ; and one sent them 
a large pig, that is to say, a porker ; another two sheep, and 16 
another sent them a calf ; in short, they had meat enough, 
and sometimes had cheese and milk, and all such things. 
They were chiefly put to it for bread, for when the gentle- 
men sent them corn, they had nowhere to bake it or to grind 
it ; this made them eat the first two bushels of wheat that 20 
was sent them, in parched corn, as the Israelites of old did, 
without grinding or making bread of it. 

At last they found means to carry their corn to a wind- 
mill, near Woodford, where they had it ground ; and 
afterwards the biscuit-baker made a hearth so hollow and 25 
dry, that he could bake biscuit-cakes tolerably well ; and 
thus they came into a condition to live without any assistance 
or supplies from the towns ; and it was well they did, for the 
country was soon after fully infected, and about a hundred 
and twenty were said to have died of the distemper in the 30 
villages near them, which was a terrible thing to them. 

On this they called a new council, and now the towns had 
no need to be afraid they should settle near them ; but, on 
the contrary, several families of the poorer sort of the 
inhabitants quitted their houses and built huts in the forest, 35 
after the same manner as they had done. But it was 
observed that several of these poor people that had so 
removed had the siclvuess even in their huts or booths ; the 



90 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 

reason of wliicli was plain, namely, not because tliey removed 
into the air, but because they did not remove time enough; 
that is to say, not till by openly conversing with the other 
peo^^le their neighbours, they had the distemper upon them, 
5 or, as may be said, among them, and so carried it about them 
whither they went. Or, secondly, because they were not 
careful enough after they were safely removed out of the 
towns, not to come in again and mingle with the diseased 
people. 

10 But be it which of these it will, when our travellers began 
to perceive that the plague was not only in the towns, but 
even in the tents and huts on the forest near them, they 
began then not only to be afraid, but to think of decamping 
and removing ; for had they stayed, they would have been 

15 in manifest danger of their lives. 

It is not to be wondered tliat they were greatly afflicted at 
being obliged to quit the place where they had been so kindly 
received, and where they had been treated with so much 
humanity and charity ; but necessity, and the hazard of life, 

20 which they came out so far to preserve, prevailed with them, 
and they saw no remedy. John, however, thought of a 
remedy for their present misfortune, namely, that he would 
first acquaint that gentleman who Avas their principal bene- 
factor with the distress they were in ; and to crave his 

25 assistance and advice. 

The good charitable gentleman encouraged them to quit 
the place, for fear they should be cut off from any retreat 
at all, by the violence of the distemper ; but whither they 
sliould go, that he found very hard to direct them to. At 

30 last John asked of him whether he, being a justice of the 
peace, would give them certificates of health to other 
justices who they might come before, that so, whatever 
might be their lot, tliey might not be repulsed now they 
had been also so long from London. This his worship 

35 immediately granted, and gave them proper letters of 
health ; and from thence tliey were at liberty to travel 
whither they pleased. 

Accordingly, they had a full certificate of health, 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



91 



intimating tliat they had resided in a village in the county 
of Essex so long; that being examined and scrutinized 
sufficiently, and having been retired from all conversation 
for above forty days, without any appearance of sickness, 
they were, therefore, certainly concluded to be sound men, 5 
and might be safely entertained anywhere ; having at last 
removed rather for fear of the plague, which was come into 
such a town, rather than for having any signal of infection 
upon them, or upon any belonging to them. 

With this certificate they removed, though with great 10 
reluctance ; and John inclining not to go far from home, 
they moved toward the marshes on the side of Waltham. 
But here they found a man who, it seems, kept a Aveir or 
stop upon the river, made to raise the water for the barges 
which go up and down the river, and he terrified them with 15 
dismal stories of the sickness having been spread into all the 
towns on the river, and near the river, on the side of 
Middlesex and Hertfordshire ; that is to say, into Waltham, 
Waltham-cross, Enfield, and Ware, and all the towns on the 
road, that they were afraid to go that way ; though, it 20 
seems, the man imposed upon them, for that the thing was 
not really true. 

However, it terrified them, and they resolved to move 
across the forest towards Eoniford and Brentwood; but 
they heard that there were numbers of people fled out of 25 
London that way, who lay up and down in the forest called 
Hainault Eorest, reaching near Romford; and who, having 
no subsistence or habitation, not only lived oddly, and 
sufi'ered great extremities in the woods and fields for want 
of relief, but were said to be made so desperate by those 30 
extremities, as that they ofifered many violences to the 
county, robbed, and plundered, and killed cattle, and the 
like ; that others, building huts and hovels by the road-side, 
begged, and that with an importunity next door to demanding 
relief ; so that the county was very uneasy, and had been 35 
obliged to take some of them up. 

This, in tlie first place, intimated to them that they 
would be sure to find the charity and kindness of the 



0^ 



MEM0TE9 OF THE PLAGUE. 



county, wliicli they had found here where they were before, 
hardened and shut up against them ; and that, on the other 
hand, they would be questioned wherever they came, and 
wotihi be in danger of violence from others in like cases 
5 with themselves. 

I^pon all these considerations, John, their captain, in all 
their names, wont back to their good friend and benefactor, 
who had relit^\'ed them before, anil laying their case truly 
before him, htnnbly asked his advice ; and he as kindly 

10 advised them to take tip their old quarters again, or, if not, 
to remove but a little further out of the road, and directed 
them to a proper place for them ; and as they really wanted 
s«:^me house, rather than huts, to shelter them at that time 
of the year, it growing on towards Michaidmas. they found 

15 an old decayed h<3use, which had been formerly some 
cottage or little halutation, but was so out of repair as 
scarce habitable : and by the c^^nsiuit of a farmer, to whose 
farm it belonged, they got leave to make what use of it 
they could. 

20 The ingenious joiner, and all the rest by his directions, 
went to work with it. and in a very few days made it capaljle 
to shelter them all. in case of bad weather : and in which 
there was an old chimney and an old oven, though both 
lying in ruins, yet they made them both lit for use ] and 

25 raising additions, sheds and lean-to's on every side, they 
soon made the house capal^le to hold them all. 

They cluefly wantiM;! boards tt_^ make window shutters, 
floors. (L:^ors. anrl several otlior things ; bnt as the gentlemen 
above favoured them, and tlie country was I'y that means 

30 made easy with them ; and. al tove all, that they were known 
to be all sound and in good health, everybody helped them 
with what they could spare. 

Here they encamped for good and all, and resolved to re- 
move no more ; they saw plainly how terribly alarmed that 

35 county was everywhere, at anybody that came from London ; 
and that they should liave no admittance anywhere but with 
tlie utmost difficulty, at least no friendly reception and 
a.s.si.stance as they had received liere. 



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l^ow although they received great assistance and en- 
couragement from the country gentlemen, and from the 
people round about them, yet they were put to great 
straits, for the weather grew cold and wet in October and 
N^ovember, and they had not been used to so much hard- 5 
ship ; so that they got cold in their limbs, and distempers, 
but never had the infection. And thus, about December, 
they came home to the city again. 

I give this story thus at large, principally to give an 
account what became of the great numbers of people which 10 
immediately appeared in the city as soon as the sickness 
abated; for, as I have said, great numbers of those that 
were able, and had retreats in the country, fled to those 
retreats. So, when it was increased to such a frightful 
extremity as I have related, the middling people, who had 15 
not friends, fled to all parts of the country where they could 
get shelter, as well those that had money to relieve them- 
selves, as those that had not. Those that had money ahvays 
fled farthest, because they were able to subsist themselves ; 
but those who were empty, sufi'ered, as I have said, great 20 
hardships, and were often driven by necessity to relieve 
their wants at the expence of the country. By that means 
the country was made very uneasy at them, and sometimes 
took them up, though even then they scarce knew what to 
do with them ; and were always very backward to punish 25 
them ; but, often too, they forced them from place to place, 
till they were obliged to come back again to London. 

I had about this time a little hardship put upon me which 
I was, at first, greatly afflicted at, and very much disturbed 
about ; though, as it proved, it did not expose me to any 30 
disaster ; and this was, being appointed by the Alderman of 
Portsoken ward, one of the examiners of the houses in the 
precinct where I lived. We had a large parish, and had no 
less than eighteen examiners, as the order called us : the 
people called us visitors. I endeavoured with all my might 35 
to be excused from such an employment, and used many 
arguments with the alderman's deputy to be excused; 
particularly, I alleged that I was against shutting up houses 



94 



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at all, and tliat it would be very hard to oblige me to be an 
iiistriinient in tliat wliicli Avas against my judgment, and 
whicli I did v(^rily believe Avoiild ntjt answer the end it was 
intended for ; but all the aluitenient I could get was only, 
5 that whereas the officer Avas appointed hy my Lord Mayor to 
continue two months, I should lie oljliged to hold it but 
three weeks, on condition, nevertheless, that I could then get 
some other sufficient housekeeper to serve the rest of the 
time for me, which was, in short, but a very small favour, it 

10 being very difficult to get any man to accept of such an 
employment, tliat was fit to be entrusted Avith it. 

It is true that shutting up of houses had one effect, which 
I am sensil:)le was moment ; namely, it confined the dis- 
tempered peo[)le, who would otherwise have been both very 

15 troublesome and very dangerous in their running al^out 
streets with the distemper upon them, wliich, when they 
were delirious, they would ha"\'e done in a most frightful 
manner, as, indeed, tliev began to do at first very much, 
until they were restrained ; nay, so very open they were, 

20 that the poor would go aliout and beg at people's doors, 
and say they had the plague upon them, and beg rags for 
their sores, or both, or anything that delirious nature hap- 
pened to think of. 

An infected person came, and knocked at the door of a 

25 citizen's house, where they knew him very Avell ; the serA^ant 
let him in, and being told the master of the lutuse Avas 
al)Ove, he ran up, and came into the room to them as the 
Avhole family Avas at suyiper. They l;>egan to rise up a little 
surprised, not knoAving Avhat the matter Avas, but he bid 

30 them sit still, — he only came to take his leave of them. 

They asked him, " AAliy, ]\Ir. , Avhere are you going V 

"Going!" says he; ^'I have got the sickness, and shall 
die to-morroAv night.'" It is easy to believe, though not to 
describe, the consteriiati<>n th(\v Avere all in ; the Avomen 

35 and the man's dauglitia's, Avliieli were but little girls, AA'ere 
frighted almost tu death, and got up, one running out at 
one door, and one at another, some doAvn stairs, and some 
up stairs, and getting togetlier as AveU as they could, locked 



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95 



themselves into their chambers, and screamed out at the 
window for help, as if they had been frighted out of their 
wits. The master, more composed than they, though both 
frighted and provoked, was going to lay hands on him, and 
throw him down stairs, being in a passion ; but then con- 5 
sidering a little the condition of the man, and the danger 
of touching him, horror seized his mind, and he stood still 
like one astonished. The p0(:>r distempered man, all this 
while, being as well diseased in his brain as in his body, 
stood still like one amazed ; at length he turns round, "Ay," 10 
says he, with all the seeming calmness imaginable, "Is it 
so with you all? Are you all disturbed at me 1 AVhy then, 
I '11 e'en go home and die there," and so he gons immediately 
down stairs. The servant that had let him in gv.ps doAvn 
after him with a candle, but was afraid t-j gr* past him and 15 
open the door, so he stood on the stairs to see^ what he 
would do; the man went and opened the door, and went 
out and flung the door after him. It was some while before 
the family recovered the fright ; but as no ill consequence 
attended, they have had occasion since to speak of it, you 20 
may be sure, with gTcat satisfaction. Though the man Avas 
gone, it was some time, nay, as I lieard, some days, before 
they recovered themselves of the hurry they were in ; nor 
di<l they go up and down the house with any assurance, 
till they had burnt a great variety of fumes and perfumes 25 
in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of pitch, 
of gunpowder, and of sulphur ; all separately shifted, and 
washed their clothes, and the like. As to the poor man, 
whether he lived or died I do not remember. 

I heard of one infected creature, who, running out of his 30 
l;)ed, in his shirt, in the anguish and agony of his swellings, 
of which he had three upon him. got his shoes on and went 
to put on his coat ; but the nurse resisting and snatching the 
coat from him, he threw her down, run over her, run down 
stairs, and mto the street directly to the Thames, in his shirt, 35 
the nurse running after him, and calling the watch to stop 
him ; but the watchmen, frighted at the man, and afraid to 
touch him, let him go on : upon which he ran down to the 



96 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 

Still-yard stairs, threw away his shirt, and plunged into the 
Thames and, being a good swimmer, swam quite over the 
river ; and the tide being coming in, as they call it, that is, 
running westward, he reached the land not till he came 
5 about the Falcon-stairs, where landing, and finding no people 
there, it being in the night, he ran about the streets there, 
naked as he was, for a good while, when, it being by that 
time high water, he takes the river again, and swam back to 
the Still-yard, landed, ran up the streets to his own house, 

10 knocking at the door, went up the stairs, and into his bed 
again. And that this terrible experiment cured him of the 
plague, that is to say, that the violent motion of his arms 
and legs stretched the parts where the swellings he had 
upon him were, that is to say, under his arms and his groin, 

15 and caused them to ripen and break , and that the cold of 
the water abated the fever in his blood. 

I got myself discharged of the dangerous office I was in, 
as soon as I could get another admitted, who I had obtained 
for a Kttle money to accept of it ; and so, instead of serving 

20 the two months which was directed, I was not above three 
weeks in it ; and a great while too, considering it was in the 
month of August, at which time the distemper began to 
rage with great violence at our end of the town. 

One thing I cannot omit here, and, indeed I thought 

25 it was extraordinary, at least, it seemed a remarkable hand 
of Divine justice, viz., that all the predictors, astrologers, 
fortune-tellers, and what they called cunning men, conjurors, 
and the like, calculators of nativities, and dreamers of 
dreams, and such people, were gone and vanished, not one 

30 of them was to be found. I am verily persuaded, that a 
great number of them fell in the heat of the calamity, 
having ventured to stay upon the prospect of getting great 
estates ; and, indeed, their gain was but too great for a 
time, through the madness and folly of the people; but 

35 now they were silent, many of tliem went to their long 
home, not able to foretell their own fate, or to calculate their 
own nativities. Some have been critical enough to say, that 
every one of tliem died : I dare not affirm that ; but this I 



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must own, that I never heard of one of them that ever 
appeared after the calamity was over. 

But to return to my particular observations during this 
dreadful part of the visitation. I am now come, as I have 
said, to the month of September, which was the most 5 
dreadful of its kind, I believe, that ever London saw; for, 
by all the accounts which I have seen of the preceding 
visitations which have been in London, nothing has been 
like it ; the number in the weekly bill amounting to almost 
40,000, from the 22nd of August to the 26th of September, 10 
being hut five weeks. The particulars of the bills are as 
follows : viz. — 



From August the 22iid to the 29tli . . . 7,496 

To the 5th of September . , . 8,252 

To the 12th . . ... 7,690 15 

To the 19th . . ... 8,297 

To the 26th . . ... 6,460 



38,195 

This was a prodigious number of itself ; but if I should 
add the reasons which I have to believe that this account 20 
was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would mth me 
make no scruple to believe, there died above ten thousand a 
week for all those weeks, one week with another, and a 
proportion for several weeks both before and after. The 
confusion among the people, especially within the city, at 25 
that time, was inexpressible ; the terror was so great at last, 
that the courage of the people appointed to carry away 
the dead began to fail them ; nay, several of them died, 
although they had the distemper before, and were recovered ; 
and some of them dropped down when they have been 30 
carrying the bodies, even at the pit side, and just ready 
to throw in; and this confusion was greater in the city, 
because they had flattered themselves with hopes of escaping, 
and thought the bitterness of death was past. One cart, 
they told us, going up Shoreditch, was forsaken of the 35 
drivers, or being left to one man to drive, he died in the 
street, and the horses going on, overthrew the cart, and left 

a 



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the bodies, some thrown out here, some there, in a dismal 
manner. Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit 
in Finsbury-fields, the driver being dead, or having been 
gone and abandoned it, and the horses running too near it, 
5 the cart fell in and drew the horses in also. It was 
suggested that the driver was thrown in with it, and that 
the cart fell upon him, by reason his whip was seen to be in 
the pit among the bodies ; but that, I suppose, could not be 
certain. 

10 In our parish of Aldgate, the dead carts were several 
times, as I have heard, found standing at the churchyard 
gate, full of dead bodies ; but neither bellman or driver, or 
any one else with it. ISTeither in these, or many other 
cases, did they know what bodies they had in their cart, for 

15 sometimes they were let down with ropes out of balconies 
and out of windows ; and sometimes the bearers brought 
them to the cart, sometimes other people ; nor, as the men 
themselves said, did they trouble themselves to keep any 
account of the numbers. 

20 It remains now that I should say something of the merciful 
part of this terrible judgment. The last week in Sej^tember, 
the plague being come to its crisis, its fury began to assuage. 
I remember my friend, Dr. Heath, coming to see me the week 
before, told me he was sure that the violence of it would 

25 assuage in a few days ; but when I saw the weekly bih of 
that week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 
8297 of all diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him 
what he had made his judgment from 1 His answer, how- 
ever, was not so much to seek, as I thought it would have 

30 been. ^*Look you," says he, "by the number which are at 
this time sick and infected, there should have been 20,000 
dead the last week, instead of 8000, if the inveterate mortal 
contagion had been as it was two weeks ago; for then it 
ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight 

35 or ten ; and then not above one in five recovered ; whereas, 
I have observed, that now not above two in five miscarry ; 
and observe it from me, the next bill will decrease, and you 
will see many more people recover than used to do; for 



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though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and as 
many every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die as 
there did, for the malignity of the distemper is abated"; 
adding, that he began now to hope, nay, more than hope, 
that the infection had passed its crisis, and was going olF ; 5 
and accordingly so it was, for the next week being, as I said, 
the last in September, the bill decreased almost 2000. 

It is true the plague was still at a frightful height, and the 
next bill was no less than 6460, and the next to that, 5720 ; 
but still my friend's observation was just, and it did aj^pear 10 
the people did recover faster, and more in number than they 
used to do ; and indeed, if it had not been so, what had Ijeen 
the condition of the city of London 1 for, according to my 
friend, there were not fewer than 60,000 people at that time 
infected, whereof, as aljove, 20,477 died, and near 40,000 15 
recovered; whereas had it been as it was before, 50,000 of 
that number would very probably have died, if not more, 
and 50,000 more would have sickened ; for, in a word, the 
whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked as if 
none would escape. 20 

But this remark of my friend's appeared more eA'ident in a 
few weeks more, for the decrease went on, and another Aveek 
in October it decreased 1849, so that the number dead of the 
plague was but 2665 ; and the next week it decreased 1413 
more ; and yet it was seen ^^lainly that there was abundance 25 
of people sick, nay, abundance more than ordinary, and 
abundance fell sick every day, but as above, the malignity of 
the disease abated. 

Such is the precipitant disposition of our jDcople (whether 
it is so or not all over the world, that is none of my particular 30 
business to inquire, but I saw it apparently here), that as 
upon the first fright of the infection they shunned one 
another, and fled from one another's houses, and from the 
city, with an unaccountable, and, as I thought, umiecessary 
fright; so now, upon this notion spreading, viz., that the 35 
distemper was not so catching as formerly, and that if it was 
catched it was not so mortal, and seeing aljundance of people 
who really fell sick^ recover again daily, they took to such a 



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precipitant courage, and grew so entirely regardless of them- 
selves, and of the infection, that they made no more of the 
plague than of an ordinary fever, nor indeed so much. They 
not only went boldly into company with those who had 

5 tumours and carbuncles upon them that were running, and 
consequently contagious, but eat and drank with them ; nay, 
into their houses to visit them ; and even, as I was told, into 
their very chambers where they lay sick. 

The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the 

10 people with all their might, and gave out printed directions, 
spreading them all over the city and suburbs, advising the 
people to continue reserved and to use still the utmost 
caution in their ordinary conduct, notwithstanding the 
decrease of the distemper ; terrifying them with the danger 

15 of bringing a relapse upon the whole city, and telling them 
how such a relapse might be more fatal and dangerous than 
the whole visitation that had been already ; with many 
arguments and reasons to explain and prove that part to 
them, and which are too long to repeat here. 

20 But it was all to no purpose ; the audacious creatures were 
so possessed with the first joy, and so surprised with the 
satisfaction of seeing a vast decrease in the weekly bills, 
that they were impenetrable by any new terrors, and would 
not be persuaded, but that the bitterness of death was 

25 passed ; and it was to no more purpose to talk to them than 
to an east wind ; but they opened shops, went about streets, 
did business, and conversed with anybody that came in their 
way to converse with, whether with business or without; 
neither inquiring of their health, or so much as being 

30 apprehensive of any danger from them, though they knew 
them not to be sound. 

This imprudent rash conduct cost a great many their 
lives, who had with great care and caution shut themselves 
up, and kept retired as it were from all mankind, and had 

35 by that means, under God's Providence, been preserved 
through all the heat of that infection. 

This rash and foolish conduct, I say, of the people went 
so far that the ministers took notice to them of it at last^ 



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101 



and laid before them Loth the folly and danger of it : and 
this checked it a little, so that they grew more cautious ; 
but it had another effect which they could not check, for as 
the first rumour had spread, not over the city only, but into 
the country, it had the like effect, and the people were so 5 
tired with being so long from London, and so eager to come 
back, that they flocked to town without fear or forecast, and 
began to show themselves in the streets, as if all the danger 
was over. It was indeed surprising to see it, for though 
there died still from 1000 to 1800 a- week, yet the people 10 
flocked to town as if all had been well. 

The consequence of this was, that the bills increased 
again 400 the very first week in November; and, if I 
might believe the physicans, there was above 3000 fell sick 
that week, most of them new comers too. 15 

One Jolin Cock, a barber in St. Martin's-le-Grand, was an 
eminent example of this ; I mean of the hasty return of the 
people when the plague was abated. This John Cock had 
left the town with his whole family, and locked up his house, 
and was gone into the country as many others did ; and 20 
finding the plague so decreased in November, that there died 
but 905 per week, of all diseases, he ventured home again ; 
he had in his family ten persons, that is to say, himself and 
wife, five children, two apprentices, and a maid servant ; he 
had not been returned to his house above a week, and began 25 
to open his shop and carry on his trade, but the distemper 
broke out in his family, and within about five days they all 
died, except one ; that is to say, himself, his wife, all his 
five children, and his two apprentices ; and only the maid 
remained ahve. 30 

But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we 
had reason to expect ; for the malignity, as I have said, of 
the distemper was spent, the contagion was exhausted, and 
also the winter weather came on apace, and the air was clear 
and cold, with some sharp frosts ; and this increasing still, 35 
most of those that had fallen sick recovered, and the health 
of the city began to return. There were, indeed, some 
returns of the distemper, even in the month of December, 



102 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGtJE. 



and the bills increased near 100, but it went off again, and 
so in a short while things began to return to their own 
channel. And wonderful it was to see how populous the 
city was again all on a sudden ; so that a stranger could not 
5 miss the numbers that were lost, neither was there any miss 
of the inhabitants as to their dwellings ; few or no empty 
houses were to be seen, or if there were some, there was no 
want of tenants for them. 

I wish I could say that, as the city had a new face, so the 

10 manners of the people had a new appearance. I doubt not 
but there were many that retained a sincere sense of their 
deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that Sovereign 
Hand that had protected them in so dangerous a time , it 
would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise in a city so 

15 populous, and where the people were so devout as they were 
here in the time of the visitation itself ; but, except what 
of this was to be found in particular families and faces, it 
must be acknowledged that the general practice of the 
people was just as it was before, and very little difference 

20 was to be seen. 

Some, indeed, said things were worse, that the morals of 
the people declined from this very time, that the people, 
hardened by the danger they had been in, like seamen after 
a storm is over, were more wicked and more stupid, more 

25 bold and hardened in their vices and immoralities than they 
were before : but I will not carry it so far neither. It would 
take up a history of no small length to give a particular of 
all the gradations by which the course of things in this city 
came to be restored again, and to run in their o^vI^ channel 

30 as they did before. 

Some parts of England were now infected as violently as 
London had been; the cities of JN'orwich, Peterborough, 
Lincoln, Colchester, and other places were now visited; and 
the magistrates of London l)egan to set rules for our con- 

35 duct, as to corresponding with those cities. It is true, we 
could not pretend to forbid their people coming to London, 
because it was impossible to know tliem asunder ; so, after 
many consultations, the Lord Mayor and court of Aldermen 



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103 



were obliged to drop it : all tliey could do, was to warn and 
caution the people, not to entertain in their houses, or con- 
verse with any people, who they knew came from such 
infected places. 

But they might as well have talked to the air, for the 5 
people of London thought themselves so plague-free now, 
that they were past all admonitions ; they seemed to depend 
upon it, that the air was restored, and that the air was, like 
a man that had had the small-pox, not capable of being 
infected again. This revived that notion that the infection 10 
was all in the air, that there was no such thing as contagion 
from the sick people to the sound ; and so strongly did this 
whimsy prevail among people, that they run altogether 
promiscuously, sick and well ; not the Mohammedans who, 
prepossessed Avith the principle of predestination, value 15 
nothing of contagion, let it be in wdiat it will, could be 
more obstinate than the people of London ; they that were 
perfectly sound, and came out of the wholesome air, as we 
call it, into the city, made nothing of going into the same 
houses and chambers, nay, even into the same beds, with 20 
those that had the distemper upon them, and were not 
recovered. 

Some, indeed, paid for their audacious boldness with the 
price of their lives ; an infinite number fell siclv, and the 
physicians had uiore work than ever, only with this 25 
difference, that more of their patients recovered, that is 
to say, they generally recovered; but certainly there were 
more people infected, and fell sick now, when there did not 
die above 1000 or 1200 in a week, than there was when 
there died 5000 or 6000 a week ; so entirely negligent were 30 
the people at that time, in the great and dangerous case of 
health and infection, and so ill were they al^le to take or 
accept of the advice of those who cautioned them for their 
good. 

The people being thus returned, as it were in general, it 35 
was very strange to find that, in their enquiring after their 
friends, some whole families were so entirely swept away, 
that there was no remembrance of them left; neither was 



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anybody to be found to possess or show any title to that 
little they had left ; for in such cases, what was to be found 
was generally embezzled and purloined, some gone one way, 
some another. 

5 It was said such abandoned effects came to the king as 
the universal heir ; upon which, we are told, and I suppose 
it was in part true, that the king granted all such, as 
deodands, to the Lord Mayor and court of Aldermen of 
London, to be applied to the use of the poor, of whom there 

10 were very many. For it is to be observed, that though the 
occasions of relief and the objects of distress were very many 
more in the time of the violence of the plague, than now 
after all was over; yet the distress of the poor was more 
now, a great deal than it was then, because all the sluices 

15 of general charity were now shut ; people supjDOsed the main 
occasion to be over, and so stopped their hands ; whereas 
particular objects were still very moving, and the distress of 
those that were poor was very great indeed. 

Great was the reproach thrown on those phj^sicians who 

20 left their patients during the sickness ; and now they came 
to town again, nobody cared to employ them ; they were 
called deserters, and frequently bills Avere set up upon their 
doors, and written, " Here is a doctor to be let ! So that 
several of those physicians were fain, for a while, to sit still 

25 and look about them, or at least remove their dwellmgs and 
set up in new places, and among new acquaintance. The 
like was the case with the clergy, who the people were 
indeed very abusive to, writing verses and scandalous reflec- 
tions upon them ; setting upon the church door, " Here is a 

30 pulpit to be let"; or sometimes, To be sold"; wliich was 
worse. 

It was not the least of our misfortunes that, with our 
infection, when it ceased, there did not cease the spirit of 
strife and contention, slander and reproach, which was really 
35 the great troubler of the nation's peace before ; it was said 
to be the remains of the old animosities which had so lately 
involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the late Act 
of Indemnity had laid asleep the quarrel itself, so the 



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105 



Government liacl recommended family and personal peace, 
upon all occasions, to the whole nation. 

But it could not be obtained, and particularly after the 
ceasing of the plague in London, when any one that had 
seen the condition which the people had been in, and how 5 
they caressed one another at that time, promised to have 
more charity for the future, and to raise no more reproaches ; 
I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought 
they would have come together Avith another spirit at last. 
But, I say, it could not be obtained ; the quarrel remained, 10 
the Church and the Presbyterians were incompatible. As 
soon as the plague was removed, the dissenting outed 
ministers, who had supplied the pulpits which were deserted 
by the incumbents, retired : they could expect no other but 
that they should immediately fall upon them and harass 15 
them with their penal laws, accept their preaching while 
they were sick, and persecute them as soon as they were 
recovered again; this, even we, that were of the Church, 
thought hard, and could by no means approve of it. 

But it was the Government, and we could say nothing to 20 
hinder it ; we could only say it was not our doing, and we 
could not answer for it. 

On the other hand, the dissenters reproaching those 
ministers of the Church with going away and deserting 
their charge, abandoning the people in their danger, and 25 
when they had the most need of comfort, and the like, this 
we could by no means approve ; for all men have not the 
same faith and the same courage, and the scripture com- 
mands us to judge the most favourably, and according to 
charity. 30 

A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed witli terrors 
that every man is not sufficiently fortified to resist, or 
prepared to stand the shock against. It is very certain that 
a great many of the clergy, who were in circumstances to 
do it, withdrew, and fled for the safety of their lives ; but 35 
it is true, also, that a great many of them stayed, and many 
of them fell in the calamity, and in discharge of their duty. 

It is true some of the dissenting turned-out ministers 



106 



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stayed, and ^heir c<:airage is to be commended and highly 
Tafued ; but these were n^jt abundance. It cann':>t be said 
that they all stayed, and that none retir-'l ' ' ' '^j^mtrv, 
any m-jie than it can b)e said of the Chiir';h . _ rhat tliL-y 
5 all went away: neither did all Th:-; rhar w^m awav '^o 
without substituting curates and C'thtr,- in tli^rir pla':es, to clo 
the C'.tn'j^?s net-lful. and to visit the >ick as far as it was 
practicable ; .so that, upon the wlirbe. an allowance of charity 
might have Ijeen i\v:\A^ on Itcah sides, and we shi:'uld have 

10 C'jnsi'lerL^'l that su«?h a time as this <jf 1665 is not to be 
parall^hd in hi^torv. and that it is not the st'jutte'>t courage 
that vuil always support men in such cases. I lia-l not said 
this, but had ra\her cIiushu r^:* r^^c^i^rd the cour and 
reli'2'i':'us znal of th-i'Sn (;,n l-C'th si'h:^s. who di<l ]i;iZ:u\l th-m- 

15 >-b:-- f-r i\v^ s-rvir'H of the puor p^-ple in th-ir -h-vr-— . 
vuih'jut r^Uii-nb ^r^rin^ that any fail*^d in th^ir duty, cn tirh^r 
si'l^, hwi the Avant r^f t-mp^r among us has ma<le the contrary 
to this necessary ; sijrne that stavf d, not onlv l-'-isting too 
much nf themselves, but reviling those that fi--!. branding 

20 thein with cowardice, deserting their flock-, and acting' the 
part Mt tlie hireling, and the like. I reCunin:-n^l i: t-j tlie 
charitv <jf all gO'^l people to Ljok back. aU'l reflect 'lulv 
upon the terrors of tlie time, and whoever ib^es s.j will see 
tliat it is not an ordinary strength that C'jidrl suppcau it : it 

25 was not like appt^-aring at the heail of an army, or charging 
a body C'f li-U'-e in the tieLl : bnt it was charging Death 
itself on hi^ p::h h^y^rse. Tc* -^av w;- indeed to die. and it 
could be e^te^ml^-l n'jthinir L:^-- ; ■■-roMb -Hv a- thiiiL:^ app^^ared 
at the latter end A-^_-~'; ' nd rb'-^ ^''•_:anb._ -f >'y>^>m-.?r, 

30 and as there was i^rd-^jii i'^ exp'>er tliLnu cU that time ; for no 
man expected, an-l I dare sav lielieved, that the distemper 
would take so .sudden a t^v <lid, and fall immediatnly 

2000 in a week, when tli-. -uch a prodigdjus numl^er 

of people sick at that time as it was known there was ; and 

35 tlien it was that many shifted away that had stayed most of 
the time before. 

Besides, if God gave strength to some more than to others, 
was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



107 



upbraid those that had not the same gift and support, or 
ought they not rather to have been humble and thankful, if 
they were rendered more useful than their brethren 1 

I think it ought to be recorded to the honour of such 
men, as well clergy as physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, 5 
magistrates, and officers of every kind, as also all useful 
people, who ventured their lives in discharge of their duty, 
as most certainly all such as stayed did to the last degree ; 
and several of all these kinds did not only venture, but lost 
their lives on that sad occasion. 10 

I would be glad if I could close the account of this 
melancholy year with some particular examples, historically, 
I mean of the thankfulness to God our Preserver, for our 
being delivered from this dreadful calamity. Certainly the 
circumstances of the deliverance, as well as the terrible 15 
enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole 
nation for it; the circumstances of the deliverance were, 
indeed, very remarkable, as I have in part mentioned 
already , and, particularly, the dreadful condition which we 
were all in, when we were, to the surprise of the whole 20 
town, made joyful with the hope of a stop of the infection. 

i^othing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but 
Omnipotent Power could have done it ! The contagion 
despised all medicine ; death raged in every corner : and 
had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have 25 
cleared the town of all and every thing that had a soul. 
Men everywhere began to despair, every heart failed them 
for fear; people were made desperate through the anguish 
of their souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces 
and countenances of the people. 30 

In that very moment, when we might very well say, 
vain was the help of man, I say, in that very moment it 
pleased God, with a most agreeable surprise, to cause the 
fury of it to abate, even of itself ; and the malignity 
declining, as I have said, though infinite numbers were 35 
sick, yet fewer died , and the very first week's bill decreased 
1843, a vast number indeed ! 

It is impossible to express the change that appeared in 



108 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGTJE. ^ 

the very countenances of the people, that Thursday morning, 
when the weekly bill came out. It might have been 
perceived in their countenances, that a secret surprise and 
smile of joy sat on everybody's face; they shook one 
5 another by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go 
on the same side of the way with one another before ; 
where the streets were not too broad, they would open their 
windows, and call from one house to another, and ask how 
they did, and if they had heard the good news, that the 

10 plague was abated ; some would return when they said 
"Good news,'^ and ask, "What good news'?" and when 
they answered that the plague was abated, and the bills 
decreased almost 2000, they would cry out, "God be 
praised!" and would weep aloud for joy, telling them they 

15 had heard no tiling of it; and such was the joy of the 
people, that it was, as it were, life to them from the grave. 
I could almost set down as many extravagant thmgs done 
in the excess of their joy as of their grief; but that would 
be to lessen the value of it. 

20 It was a common tiling to meet people in the street, that 
were strangers, and that we knew nothing at all of, 
expressing their surprise. Going one day through Aldgate, 
and a pretty many ]ieople being passing and repassing, there 
comes a man out vi the end of the Minories, and looking a 

25 httle up the street and down, he throws his hands abroad, 
" Lord, what an alteration is here ! Why, last week I 
came along here, and hardly anybody was to be seen." 
Another man, I heard him, adds to his words, " 'T is all 
wonderful; 'tis all a dream." "Blessed be God!" says a 

30 third man, " and let us give thanivs to Him, for 't is all His 
own doing." Human lielp and human skill was at an end. 
These were all strangers to one another ; but such salutations 
as these were frequent in the street ever}^ day ; and in s[)ite 
of a loose behaviour, the very common people went along 

35 the streets giving God thanks for their deliverance. 

It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all 
api)rehensions, and that too fast ; indeed we were no more 
afraid, now, to pass by a man with a white cap upon his 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



109 



head, or with a cloth wrapt round his neck, or with his leg 
hm[)ing, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were 
frightful to the last degree but the week before ; but now 
the street was full of them, and these poor recovering 
creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of 5 
their unexpected deliverance; and I should wrong them very 
much if I should not acl^nowledge that I believe many of 
■them were really thankful ; but I must own, that for the 
generality of the people it might too justly be said of them, 
as was said of the children of Israel, after their being 10 
delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed the 
Red Sea, and loo]?:ed back and saw the Egyptians over- 
whelmed in the water, viz., "That they sang His praise, but 
they soon forgot His works." 

I can go no further here. I should be counted censorious, 15 
and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasant 
work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon 
the unthank fulness and return of all manner of wickedness 
among us, which I was so much an eye-witness of myself. 
I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, there- 20 
fore, with a coarse but a sincere stanza of my own, which I 
placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums, the same 
year they were written : — 

A dreadful plague in London was, 

In the year sixty-five, 25 
Which swept an hundred thousands souls 

Away. — Yet I alive I 

H. F. 



NOTES 



Page XV' Continued all the while in London, The original title 
of the book was, " A Journal of the Plague Year, being observations 
or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as 
private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 
1665, written by a citizen who continued all the while in London, 
never made public before." 

1. 3 The plague was rettu^ned. The plague of 1 665 was the 
seventh plague that had visited England since 1592. The plague years 
previous to 1665 were 1592, 1603, 1625 (spoken of, on account of the 
severity of the plague, as "that never-to-be-forgotten year"), 1630, 1636, 
1637, 1638. But severe as the mortality had been in these years, it 
was trifling compared with that in 1665. 

9 Come. The reader will notice a good deal of what we should call 
* looseness' in grammar. In some instances it is probably merely the 
inaccuracy of the printer, in others it shows a difference between the 
idiom of that day and ours. The commonest instances are the use of 
singular for plural verbs and vice versa^ and carelessness as to the cases 
of the relative pronoun {cf. p. 3, 1. 4 ; p. 5, 1. 10). Printed books of this 
time also show a great indifference to spelling and the use of capitals. 
Capitals are used indiscriminately for nearly all substantives, and 
sometimes, possibly for the sake of emphasis, for many adjectives and 
verbs. This text is taken from the first edition of 1722, and represents 
nearly all the grammatical irregularities. The spelling and use of 
capital letters follow the modern custom. 

II Newspapers. The first real newspaper was established in 1663 
by Sir Roger 1' Estrange, and was called the Public Intelligencer. The 
London Gazette a.pTpea.rQd in 1642; but the first number of the existing 
series was published in 1665 at Oxford, w^here the Co'urt was staying 
because of the plague. It was afterwards published in London. In 
1695 the censorship of the Press was abolished, and newspapers 
multiplied rapidly. Thus in 1724 there were three daily and six 
weekly papers, besides ten evening papers, which appeared three 
times a week. 



112 



MEMOmS OF TEE PLAGUE. 



Page 1. 

26 Drury-lane. This is west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was, of 
course, to Defoe the " other end [or west end] of London " (see 
p. 12, 1. 2S), and was outside the city. 

2. 8 Bills of ??io7'tality. These were weekly returns, compiled from 
the Parish Registers, and issued in London by the Company of Parish 
Clerks. They were first issued in 1598, and were the only means of 
providing a census. The hall will be that of the Company. The 
district included in the returns comprised ninety -seven parishes in 
London within the walls, sixteen parishes in London without the walls, 
five in Westminster, and twelve out-parishes in Ivliddlesex and Surrey. 

3. 4 ^Vas. See note on p. i, 1. 9. 

5 Spotted fever. The old name for typhus fever. 

18 Holboni. This name seems to be equivalent to * Hole-bonme.* 
The stream flowed in a deep hollow between high banks. Its source 
was at Haverstock Hill, and it entered the Thames at Blackfriars. 
The tidal part of the stream was called the Fleet. The lower part of 
its course is identical with Faringdon Road and Faringdon Street, but 
it is now entirely underground. Holborn Hill led to the bridge over 
the Hole-bourne, and Fleet Street to the bridge over the Fleet. 
(Loftie, Hist. Loftdo7i.) 

21 Stocks Market. This market received its name from the stocks 
which were erected there. The Mansion House was buUt on the site 
of the market in 1738. 

30 The ninety-seven parishes; i.e. all London within the walls ; the 
City proper. (See above.) 

35 City or libei'ties. The word 'liberty' means a place where any 
special jurisdiction or franchise was exercised. (^7) The libeiiies in this 
passage means those parishes which, though outside the walls of 
London, were yet under the jurisdiction of the City, and enjoyed all 
its privileges. They were therefore exempt or free fi-om the jonsdiction 
of the County Courts ; they were to all intents a part and parcel of the 
City, {b) There were also within the City boundary certain districts 
which were exempt from the jurisdiction of the City, and claimed to be 
subject to courts of their own — such as the Liberty of the Rolls, the 
Liberty of the Tower, the Liberty of the Clink in Southwark. In 
these liberties the City magistrates had no authority, and hence they 
tended to become the resort of criminals. Throughout this book the 
word liberties will bear the first of these two meanings. 

5. 10 Who. See note on Co7?ie^ p. I, 1. 9. 

16 / livedo &c. Defoe's supposed dwelling-place may be seen 
on the map. Whitechapel Bars form the entrance to the liberty or 
parish outside the walls. The entrances to all these extra-mural 



NOTES. 



113 



parishes were marked by bars ; Temple Bar remained till quite lately. 
The gates were the entrances in the old walls into London proper. 
The district of Whitechapel owes its name to the church of St. Mary. 
It was a chapel of ease to St. Dunstan's, Stepney, and was white 
outside. (Noorthouck, Hist. London.) 

7. II Family. Cf. the Latin word familia, which meant a house- 
hold of slaves. 

21 Master, save thyself. An allusion to St. Mark xv. 30. 

8. 13 War ; i.e. the Civil War. 

13. 14 Spared. The 1722 edition has "orspared/* which seems to 
be a printer's error for 'spared.' 

16. 18 Akeldama. Field of blood. Cf. Acts i. 19. 

28 Phlegmatic hypochondriac part. Temperaments were classified, 
according to the ' humours,' into four classes — the sanguineous, bilious, 
phlegmatic, and melancholic — according as the heart, liver, head, or 
spleen were supposed to be predominant in modifying the humours. 

31 Comets. An account of these comets may be found in the Philo- 
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. i. It seems that, as a 
matter of fact, the flaming comet came in 1665 and the dull comet in 
1666. 

17. 17 Natural causes. It was in this very year of the plague 
that Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravitation, and was thus 
enabled to explain the principles which regulate the movements of the 
heavenly bodies. 

18. 3 Lilys Ah)ianack. William Lily, M.D., famous for his astro- 
logical writings, was born in 1602. He gained great fame by his pre- 
tended skill in casting nativities. The theory of astrology was that 
the life of a man might be predicted from a calculation of the position 
of the stars and planets at the time of his birth, and the movements of 
the heavenly bodies were supposed to exercise an influence on all 
human affairs. Lily wrote a history of his life and times, and died 
in 1681. 

3 Gadbwys alogical predictions. Gadbury was a pupil and after- 
wards a rival of Lily. He pubhshed in 1665 a pamphlet called 
Lo7tdon^s Deliverance Predicted. It is a curious mixture of religion 
and astrology, and exactly calculated to appeal to the popular fancy. 
He gravely discusses whether the plague be catching, and decides that 
it is not, advises people not to fly from London, and says, curiously 
enough, that this plague was foretold by astrology and will cease in 
September. This was a lucky guess or more probably the result of 
comparing notices of former plagues. ^Alogical ^ may be an error lor 
* astrological.' Gadbury, like his master, managed to escape the 
plague, apparently by flight, notwithstanding the advice in his pamphlet, 

i 



114 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



Page 18. 

7 Brifams Remembrancer, A book with this title was published in 
1628. It contains "A Narration of the Plague lately past, a Declar- 
ation of the Mischief present, and a Prediction of Judgments to come 
(if Repentance prevent not). It is dedicated (for the glory of God) to 
Posteritie and to these times (if they please) by George Wither." 
Defoe probably confused this book with a Memorandit77i to Loiido7t 
occasioned by the Pestilence with a warning piece to London^ by the 
.ame author. This did actually appear in 1665. Wither was one of 
•he most productive and popular poets of his day. He is now best 
cnown by the lines beginning — 

" Shall I, wasting in despair, 
Die because a woman's fair?** 

10 Enthusiastically. Cf, p. 42, 1. 10, and note. 

20. 21 Petty-France. This is now New Broad Street. Petty- 
France, in Westminster, was so called as being the quarter of the 
French Protestants who fled from France in 1685, and some such 
occasion may have given the name to the court in Bishopsgate. 

21. 13 Vapours ; i.e. fits of melancholy, humours of the mind. 
See note on p. 16, 1. 28. Cf. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV. iv. 3, "It {i.e. 
sherris sack) ascends me into the brain ; dries me there all the foolish 
and dull and crudy vapours which environ it." Ben Jonson talks of 
vapours of the spleen ; and by Congreve's time (1629-1729) * vapours' 
are a recognised disease of the mind. (Oliphant, New English.) 

22. 3 Moderate iveath^r, &c. It has been said that Defoe is 
inaccurate here, and that the air was unusually still and heavy; but 
from the Collection of Scarce Pieces (see Introduction, p. xiv.), it appears 
that Defoe's account is correct. 

15 Quickening ; i.e. making them alive. A.S. cwic^ living. So we 
have 'the quick of the nail,' 'quicklime,' 'quicksilver,' 'quick-set.' 
(See Skeat, Etym. Diet.) 

36 B7'eaches, &c. This refers to the Act of Uniformity and the 
Five Mile Act, passed in 1662 and 1663. 

23. 38 Friar Bacon s brazen head. Roger Bacon, the great 
Franciscan friar, who taught at Oxford ( 1 240- 1292), was, in popular 
belief, a great magician, and the Famous Historic of Friar Bacon was 
a favourite story. Bacon, we are told, wanted to keep England from 
conquests, and so make himself famous. This he found was only to 
be done by making a head of brass and hearing it speak. " Then might 
he be able to wall all England about with brass." He made the head, 
and, watching to hear it speak till he was worn out, left his servant 
with strict orders to call him directly the head spoke. Presently the 
head uttered the words, " Time is " ; but the servant thought this was 
not sufficiently important to justify him in calling his master. In half 



NOTES. 



115 



an hour it spoke again, Time was." This was no better than before. 
In another half-hour it said, "Time is past"; and therewith fell 
down. And presently followed a terrible noise, with strange flashes of 
fire." So Bacon's toil was in vain. 

24. 3 Mother Shipton. Ursula Shipton, said to have been the 
daughter of Agatha Shipton and the devil, was a poor deformed old 
body, who lived at Knaresborough, near York, in the time of Henry 
VIII. She was credited with prophesying that Wolsey, when he left 
his palace one day, would never arrive at York, and that Ouse Bridge 
would be destroyed. These predictions were fulfilled, and many others 
were attributed to her. The lines which foretold the introduction of 
steam, electricity, &c., and ended — 

" The world to an end shall come 
In the year eighteen hundred and eighty-one," 
and were frequently quoted as a prophecy of Mother Shipton's twenty 
years ago, are said to be a forgery of one Charles Hindley in 1862. 
(See Mother Shipton, by W. H. Harrison, London, 1881.) 

3 Merlins Head. This is a reference to the Merlin famous in the 
story of King Arthur. A new edition of Malory's Morte d' Arthur 
had appeared in 1634. Merlin was as popular a hero in tales of magic 
as Friar Bacon. 

25. 6 Jack-puddings ; clowns, comic fellows. Hone, in the Every- 
day Book, says, " Common people are apt to give to some well-known 
facetious personage the name of a favourite dish; hence the 'jack- 
pudding' of the English, the * jean-potage ' of the French, and the 
* macaroni' of the Italians." 

6 Merry-andrtws. Hone gives two explanations: (i) From An 
d7'ieu = ^ arch, druid.' (2) From Andrew Borde, a writer of the six- 
teenth century, and physician to Henry VIII. Both are unsatisfactory. 
Merry Andrews at fairs used to wear patched coats, like harlequins, 
and sometimes had a hunch like our Punch. 

26. 5 Sove7'eign. From j/;?/;-^ above, ' and so =* uppermost ' or 
'supreme.' 

30. 3 How do you do? Notice that this has not yet become a 
mere ceremonious phrase. 

31. 30 Pest- House, See map. It was close to the place where 
St. Luke's Hospital now stands. It was probably built for the 
sufferers in the plague of 1603. Bunhill is a corruption of ' Bonehill.' 
A thousand cartloads of human bones were brought here from the 
charnel-house of St. Paul's in 1549, and the street dirt being put here, 
the place was made a common laystall or refuse-heap. The hill thus 
formed was afterwards crowned with three windmills. 



116 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



Page 

32. II Bii'k. A partition of boards, the stall or projecting frame- 
work for the display of goods before a shop. Cf. Shakspeare, Oihe!L\ 
V. I, "Here, stand behind this hulk^^ So 'bulkhead' is a wooden 
partition in a ship. (Wedgwood.) 

34. 4 Loii^ CoiaifriiS. This may refer to the capture of Dunkirk 
from the Spanish in 165S; and the late wars would then seem to mean 
the Dutch war of 1664. 

II Husband. ' Master of the house,' and so ' careful manager.' 

20 Ezidciitly. 'Plainly.' Cf, Acts x. 3, "He saw in a vision 

evidently.'^ 

36. 9 HoioUsdifcJu This part of the old ditch of the City lies 

between Bishopsgate and Aldgate. It was paved and converted into 
streets in 1503. But when it lay open, "'much filth conveyed out of 
the City, especially dead dogs, was there laid or cast." (Maitland, 
Hist. London.) 

10 Three Niais Inn-. This inn owes its name to its proximity to 
the ]\Iinorite Convent in the opposite street. (See note on MijiorUs^ 
below. ) The sign still remains, though the house has been rebuilt. 

37. 20 Li/iks. A link was a torch of pitched rope, probably from 
Dutch lonte = ^3. gunner's match.' (Wedgwood.) Links were used till 
the beginning of this century, and may even now be seen in a London 
fog. ^lany houses still have over the steps the iron extinguisher which 
the link-men used to put out their links. 

20 Mi}iori-:s. This street, on the site of the old City ditch, derives 
its name from the Convent of Poor Clares, or Mmoresses.'^ St. 
Francis of Assisi founded, in 1208, the order of Mendicant or 
Begging Friars, and as a mark of humility called his followers 
" Fratres Minores,'' lesser brothers or friars. St. Clare founded a 
sisterhood under the rules of St. Francis. The friars were absolutely 
poor, and their mission was to the outcast of society; hence their 
houses were established in the poorest districts, and often, as in this 
case by the city ditch. 

41. 27 Breaches ; i.e. judgments or punishments. Cf, I Chron. 
XV. 13, " The Lord our God made a breach upon us," 

42. 10 Enthusiastic; i.e. 'extravagant'; literally, ' acted upon by 
divine Spirit.' Burton, in the Atiatorny of Melancholy^ speaks of 
" enthusians and impostors." 

11 Impertinc7it ; i.e, not pertinent, not to the point. Cf. Shakspeare, 
Temtest^ i. 2, "Without the which this story were most impertinent." 

43. 5 6'/(/'/;/:' = lying face upwards, and so Mazy,' 'indolent.' 



NOTES. 



117 



45. 37 Mile-End. This district was so called as being one mile 
from Aldgate. (Noorthouck.) 

47. 23 Went immediately away. Near Bristol is a spot still called 
" Pitch and Pay," from the fact that the country people used in the 
plague time to bring their goods here and leave them, trusting to their 
customers to deposit the money in the same fashion. 

26 Spittle-fields. Here once stood an old hospital belonging to the 
Priory of St. Mary, Spital. In Roman times this was a burying-place. 

29 Wood's-close. This is now Northampton Row, 

48. 12 Coleman's Street. This may be seen in the map leading 
from London Wail to Poultry. 

22 Tok-Jt-hoHse Yard. Here were manufactured, from 1648-1672, 
the copper coinage or 'tokens.' 

35 Garret. Properly a place of look-out, or watch-tower (O.F. 
garite), and so a room at the top of a house. (Skeat, Etym. Diet.) 

54. 32 Moimt-7nilL At the upper end of Goswell Street. 

56. 29 Post-house. The first public letter post was established in 
1635. In 1640 an act established a General Post Office and the office 
of Postmaster-General. Letters were carried at the rate of twopence 
a sheet for eighty miles. 

57. 20 Smooth groats. The groat was a silver coin of the value 
of fourpence. 

20 Brass farthings. These were tokens j i.e. they represented a 
farthing, although their value was much less. 

34 Bromley is in Essex, and Blackwall a little to the south. Both 
places may be easily identified on any map of London. 

58. 32 Presently; i.e. immediately. Cf. Matthew xxi. 19. 

62. II Deptford-bridge. This bridge crosses the Ravensbourne, 
which divides Greenwich from Deptford. 

26 The point; i.e. Blackwell Point, below Greenwich. Redriff \% 
the modern Rotherhithe, on the south side of the river, opposite to 
Limehouse. 

67. 15 Lepers of Saniaria. See 2 Kings vii. 3. 

33 Vagrant. Vagrancy Acts were passed in 1530 and 1547. In 
1597 a new Vagrancy Act (the one alluded to here) was passed, and 
this remained in force till 1713. 



ns 



MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 



Page 

71. 19 Great road ; i.e. the Mile End and Bow Roa^:^, which led 
to Colchester. 

76. 19 Boardcd-rivcr ; i.e. the New River, which was made by 
Sir Hugh Middleton (160S-1613) to supply London with water. The 
only source of supply before this, besides the various conduits, was the 
Thames: and a 'forcier,' or wheel, was constructed near London 
Bridge in 15S2 by one Peter ^b:*rris. a Dutchman, to raise the water 
from the river. The term :,:i-d-d ni'cr is explained by the following 
passage in Stow's Sun cy 0^ Londoi ajcd [J'csf'/d/?sf:-r (Strype's edition), 
" The depth of the trench [i.e. of the New River] in some places 
descended fully thirty feet, if not more; 'Ahereas in other places it 
required as sprighiful art again to mount it over a valley in a trough 
between a coujjle of hills, and the trough all the while borne up by 
wooden arches/' 

79, 33 ddi/?/s /r^-'^zi'jy. The four great Roman roads — Watling 
Street, Fos-e ^^'ay, ITikenild Street, and Ermin Way — are mentioned 
in the laws of Edward the Confessor as being protected by the King's 
peace '"' ; i.e. any otlence committed upon them would be under the 
jurisdiction, not of the local courts, but of the king's ovrn otiicers. 
This tended to ensure the safety of travellers. Li the la ws of Henry I. 
we find that all great roa Is were included in the jurisdiction of the 
king. (See Thorpe, A}i':ic}it Laius a}id Iji^tiiiites or Engh}id.) 

80. 29 Quaji-.-r. The quartering or billeting of soldiers and sailors 
on citizens against their will was one of the evils complained of in the 
Petition of Right. 

85. 29 Loiv Country soldiers. See note, page 34, L 4. 

88. 29 Hiy^Je}-s — \i-dK\iVtx<', i.e. those who 'haggle' or spend much 
time over a bargarn. 

91. 13 Weir or stop ; i.e, a lock. 

93. 32 Portsoken JVard. This was the ward or division of the 
city of London just outside Aldgate. It was the * soke ' or liberty 
(see note p. 3, I/35) of the port or gate. (Loftie, ) 

94. 8 Housekeeper ; i.e. householder. 

96. I Still-yard. See map. This is a corruption of * steel-yard,' 
the yard in Dowgate, where the foreign merchants, the Gilda Teutoni- 
corum, had a factory, and where steel was sold. See '::dk^z.'i % Dictionary. 

98. 29 To seek. *To be wanting.' In the Life of St, Brandan it 
says of the devil, "Nothing to siche (seek) he nas." Cf. Porsons' 
epigram on Hermann and the German Scholars, " The Germans in 
Greek are sadly to seek." (Olipbant, Old a?id Middle EnglisJi.) 



KOTES. 



119 



104. 8 Deodands, A deodand is a thing to be given to God [deo 
dandtwi) to appease his wrath where a person comes to a violent death 
by mischance. It is forfeited to the king or the lord of the manor ; if 
to the king, his almoner disposes of it by sale, and the money arising 
thereby he distributes to the poor. 

37 Act of hideimiity ; i,e. the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion for 
offences committed during the Civil Wars, passed by the Convention 
in i66o. 

106. 26 Death itself on his pale horse. See Revelation vi. 8. 
109. 13 Sang His praise. See Psalm cvi. 12, 13. 



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